It feels like all the joy I used to feel from being an enthusiast has been completely voided as computing has become the modern vector for fascism and surveillance. I find myself recoiling from all online spaces, even independent and open source ones that I’d loved and supported in the past.
It’s been an exceptionally strange impulse to go from having an elaborate online presence to now feeling like the only acceptable way to engage with the network is to have as minimal of an online footprint as possible.
This especially hurts when it feels like an issue of skilling, where I know how to do certain tasks with computers, but have to teach myself for the first time the analogue alternatives that my parents and their parents likely already knew well.
How have you chosen to deal with it? Do you find yourself moving away from computing and the internet, despite formerly loving it as a hobby? Have you replaced things that computers used to do for you with analogue replacements?
I’m curious how other people are experiencing this.
I used to love tinkering with my pc and gaming, but moved away from both in the past few years. With gaming, it had been my primary hobby since I was very young, so I think I just got bored of it. As far as computing, not really sure why, but probably since I’m spending less time on my pc gaming, so I don’t see a need to do too much with it nowadays. It’s a fancy gaming rig that I mostly use to run a web browser, listen to music, and a little light gaming.
I got into plastic models a couple years ago, and that filled a void I didn’t know existed until after I started. I’ve always liked working with my hands and grew up playing with building toys like Lego and K’nex, so this feels like a continuation of that. I also find it kind of amusing that a hobby that revolves around sitting at your desk alone has got me more social and out of the house than anything else has since I graduated college.
You should check out itch.io sometime. It’s singlehandedly helped reignite my passion for PC gaming, and I suddenly have more games downloaded on my desktop since Windows Vista lol