Bad Browsing Habits Return

Last week, was a bit chaotic. It’s my second busiest week of the year at my job and I was putting the final touches of my old apartment before turning in my keys. In the midst of all that was going on, I found myself just wanting to zone out here and there. I needed a break from the chaos, so I slowly slipped back into my old internet habits. The news trickled in at first, and then the r/all page on reddit. I began that slippery slope and today suffered the consequences.

Brandy and I took a trip to Walmart and I felt like something was off. I was, for lack of a better world, paranoid. It was almost like those few months after we were attacked at Sheetz, where I was jumpy and things just didn’t sit well with me. At first, I blamed it on it being Walmart, because it’s just about my least favorite place on Earth to go into. But then we made our way to Whole Foods, Chick-fila, and Trader Joes and the feeling didn’t go away.

I confessed my dark feelings and even mentioned that something was off. It wasn’t the places, but it was me. As Brandy and I discussed it, I slowly realized how my internet behavior had been poisoning my mental health again. My desire to be lazy and just zone out, had propelled me to visit easy to get to sites and in doing so, exposing me to a lot of negative videos, hot takes, and unpleasantness.

I hate that I’ve done this to myself once again, but I’m thankful that I realized it before it went on too long. I’ve made some adjustments tonight to some accounts and put up some additional blocking and filters to at least present a hurdle should I ever decided to just “check on the state of the world.”