No need to be (that much) online

12 Apr 2025

Around February 2023, I made a resolution to reduce the need of being constantly online.

I don’t remember well if something specific happened that made me start at that time. But I remember perfectly the reason why I wanted to do it: my brain was overwhelmed with too much information.

I was spending several hours a day watching Netflix and YouTube, doomscrolling my Twitter feed and reading different online newspapers. That was in addition to the incoming posts from my RSS feed and reading books for professional development.

Luckily, I had already abandoned WhatsApp¹, Instagram and Facebook years ago and stayed away from Snapchat, Twitch, TikTok, etc.

Twitter

The first decision I made was quite difficult: delete all my content from Twitter and stop using it. The fear of missing out was real because Twitter had been a source of references to keep myself up to date in the software industry.

So I did it as an experiment: I would stay off Twitter for at least a year, without cancelling my account. And if I didn’t notice any difference after that time, I would cancel my account.

It turned out, I didn’t miss it at all and deleted my account on January 2025.

Netflix

The next step I took was selling our TV and cancelling Netflix. This one was easier, but still somewhat frightening. If I was not watching any of that, what was I going to talk about when I met my family, friends and colleagues? It may seem like a silly question², but it crossed my mind a few times.

Fortunately, we had some unexpected help: the TV broke down and, without one, suspending the Netflix account was an easier decision.

Digital books

Another thing I stopped doing was buying digital books, either in PDF or for my Amazon Kindle, and instead buying their paperback or hardcover version.

This change had more to do with the feeling that my brain understands and retains information much better when I read on physical paper. There’s something about this format that somehow makes that easier.

And as a bonus, I also reduced the time my eyes were spending looking at a screen.

Surveillance capitalism

Meanwhile, I had been growing more and more tired of surveillance capitalism (or capitalism and consumerism in general, for that matter).

Privacy has always been an important topic to me, and the reason why I stopped using anything from Meta and Google as early as 2017³, tuned my /etc/hosts and DNS servers, started using iVPN in networks I don’t trust and subscribed to Better first and 1Blocker later.

And because spending hours online and sharing selling all your personal data⁴ usually go hand in hand, I wanted to use the momentum to regain more of my privacy online.

So in 2024 I continued making changes in this direction, like replacing Safari with Firefox (and uBlock Origin), cancelling my accounts in more services and social networks like Strava, and uninstalling many apps from my smartphone.

No breaking news

As for keeping up to date with what’s happening in the world, I changed my habits to what Spanish journalist Javier del Pino calls periodismo a fuego lento (journalism over a low heat).

I realised that I don’t need to read or watch the news as often. On the one hand because nothing that’s really significant happens every day. And on the other, because knowing about events with the perspective of time gives you the space for building a more well-rounded opinion.

That’s why I turned to weekly or bi-weekly publications, either in the form of podcasts, radio programs or longer research-like articles.

If I look at the numbers, I might be spending the same amount of time or maybe a little less. But the pace and the quality is what makes the difference.

Spotify

There’s something else I would like to do, but I’m not sure whether it will be feasible: cancel my Spotify account.

The music industry has changed in ways that no longer make it easier to listen to music like I used to. But music is such an important part of my life that I would really like to go back to a more traditional approach.

Balance

In retrospective, I see now that most of the things I stopped doing were not bringing much value to my life. And in exchange, I was sacrificing the time for other things that, to this day, not only bring me joy, but help me recover mentally and emotionally.

Now I’m enjoying more of my time doing sports (mostly snowboarding, running, swimming and hiking), going to the gym, playing guitar or simply walking around the neighbourhood.

Sometimes I don’t do anything at all, and I just spend time in solitude, if only for the sake of getting bored and seeing what comes out of my mind. Being able not to do anything for a couple of hours has become an underrated skill in the digital era.

I’m aware that I’m missing out on some good things. Not everything I’ve left behind was bad or harmful. But all in all, I think I have a much better balance now.