“Link in Bio!”
Why the internet isn't fun for us anymore and where to go now
It’s been a long day, so you’re excited to have a shower and hop into bed with just cosy pyjamas. You whip out your phone and open the app that has a 2D musical note as its logo. Telling yourself that it’ll just be a few videos, maybe 4 which turns into 7 which turns into 13 which turns into 22…
At last, 62 videos later which are mostly watched at 2x viewing speed, you set your phone down and attempt to sleep. Of course, your mind is still wired from being hooked up to the internet for the past hour but you try anyway.
Another night? Rinse and repeat.
If that sounds familiar, then this will too: you don’t only leave the clock app with DIY ideas and travel inspiration, you also leave with ‘recommendations’ that fill your Amazon cart too.
You have tabs on your Chrome browser from different retailers that you vow to revisit later while your subconscious works out if the purchase is indeed worth your pocket value. But why? Is it not enough that I watch your silly get ready with me’s and story times, why do I also have to be encouraged to need stuff that frankly will not change my life?
Welcome to the internet in the roaring 20’s!
The internet was this magic thing that was only magical when no one had picked up the landline to make a phone call. Almost immediately after someone would, the internet would stop working and have that high-pitched sound just to notify you.
I, like many other late millennials and very early Gen Z, was privy to the ‘internet’ when it was just chat rooms, AOL and the CBBC website. But it was okay too if I wasn’t connected to the internet, playing Solitaire and Minesweeper was exciting.
No one was really worried about internet safety much back then beyond the reminder not to give out your real name or identity to other internet people which was very easy rule to follow. Most people had usernames that looked like the most random words thrown together with maybe a few numbers at the end to spice things up. Profile pictures were default images messenger apps gave us or if you had time, one of the very limited options they gave us. If you and a chatroom buddy wanted to get personal, then maybe, maybe you’d exchange email addresses and respond to each other intermittently across days.
Those days are long behind us and now the internet is no longer fun.
We all still log on, the ever-growing metrics for engagement and downloads and comments continue to rise. Except if you’re Twitter of course. We absolutely hate the reduction of attention span, the intrusion into our body’s natural circadian cycle and the way it loops our brains into disaster but yet we resignedly open the same apps day after day.
Interestingly none of those things seem to be making us want to delete the apps, instead it’s the endless recommendations which are really just services and people and brands and songs and clothes and skincare and stuff being sold to us 24/7.
It’s almost inescapable: someone is going on a run and recommending you buy running shoes from xyz company oh and by the way, check the link in bio! Someone else is getting married and detailing how she prepared for her wedding, in fact the perfect way to plan was using a Notion template she made - Link in Bio! - which ensured everything was super easy! A man is talking about how hard being a single dad is, it wasn’t what he expected and thankfully he joined a community which is excellent and so helpful and so brilliant but get this… The link is in his bio and it’s just a small fee to tap into the endless knowledge of single dads!
‘Link is in my bio’
’You can find the link to this in my bio!’
’Don’t forget to check the link in my bio for this and other…’
If there’s a new rule about the internet, it’s that there’s always a link in their bio.
Even when the person or people featured in a video do not attempt to advertise an item, we see viewers leave a barrage of comments asking where they got it from and whether they recommend getting it? It’s come to be something that is expected on the internet, whether either party - the audience or the creator - wants to participate or not.
Yet, with a cost of living crisis raging intensely and more companies being revealed to be highly unethical with their labour practices as well as their negative environmental impact, the audience is tired.
I am tired, tired of having to have my Amazon app open at the same time as when I engage in what I assume to be a recreational activity of being on the internet.
So where do we go from here?
In the good old days, you could just turn your TV off and that’s it, the ads would stop. Or you could switch channels for just the right amount of time to miss the ads. Now all the alternatives are doing the same thing, no matter where you switch to. You switch apps, you switch streaming services, you switch YouTube channels, it’s all the same thing: a barrage of ads under the guise of content.
It’s something I covered in my master’s dissertation: how marketing has evolved into the skills needed to be able to market to everyone, everywhere, all at once. Which sometimes fills me with despair knowing I am at once a part of the machine ensuring this sales-y media cycle continues, as both an audience and a product marketer.
The bad news is that it isn’t going away for a long, long time. The good news is that you can.
A Wednesday Waffle
I recently started a Wednesday Waffle with my friend and it is so much better than going onto the internet to do a video for your followers who might not even be people you know. Instead, it’s a personalised video that we send to each other to catch up about anything from books we’re reading to how we’ve started going into the office for more productivity.
It isn’t ‘offline’, we send it to each other on a messaging app. Yet it feels like connectivity because we actually communicate with each other beyond just a comment on a social media video. The idea was taken from this video:
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Getting lost in worlds that require imagination
Everyone who knows me, knows I love books. Over the years my relationship with them has morphed and evolved. Right now I realise that I enjoy reading because I get to enjoy a story that requires my brain to do some work in order to fully enjoy the story.
With social media, you get the privilege of memes or soundtracks which give you the context which might be why lack of media comprehension skills are on the decline. Reading gives you a foundation and a push that says “Off you go, imagine what what that could be based on what you’ve been given!”
It might sound off but thwarting the urge to passively scroll and instead flipping on my Kindle is saving me from purchases and mental real estate taken over by ads.
The real world
Sometimes we forget that IRL is actually, IRL. It’s why I really enjoy travelling as much as I do: I get to live in it and not just consume content about it. Travelling constantly isn’t an answer, but learning to live in the real world might just be.
Perhaps we all need to go outside more often and play tourists at home, wherever that is. So this summer I plan to go to parks I normally wouldn’t and picnic in the weak British sun while I maybe interrupt my reading to make a Wednesday Waffle.