As I expand my Zen practice I’m taking time to look at my daily behavior. Lately I’ve found myself escaping into Reddit a lot. I’ve decided the solution is to collect my writing here instead.
I’ve always liked message boards, going clear back to Usenet in the 1990s. Across decades of using them I’ve made both online and real-life friends, developed expertise in niche pursuits, and engaged in epic flame wars. I learned how to maintain planted aquariums, work with essential oils, make soap, eat safely with celiac disease, and hand spin partly from online communities. The sound of an acoustic modem handshaking immediately teleports me into nostalgia. Unfortunately, the Internet has completely changed since I first got online and joined small, niche communities over 30 years ago. Nowadays massive social media and sites like Reddit have a tremendous pull. It’s easy to find oneself escaping into Reddit, Instagram, or TikTok.
The Changing Internet
The pre-WWW Internet was hard to access. You had to have an academic, government, or work based account. Going online required enough technical knowledge to use a modem and a Unix shell. Email addresses contained names and schools or workplaces so very few people were anonymous. As people joined communities they learned and followed unwritten rules of behavior. Group owners could report malicious users to their school or workplace and often they would face disciplinary action. Between the difficulty of getting online and the concrete consequences for bad behavior, Usenet had a strong community feel. The user base was also small, bandwidth was precious, and messages took days to travel, not seconds. This meant that the message volume was low and signal to noise was pretty good.
Reddit reminds me of Usenet in some ways. It has an enormous variety of communities, and is largely text based. Groups are moderated, and problem users are often banned. However, it has a huge difference. Spez has made the site into a massive Skinner box. Upvotes, karma points, reply notifications, and awards offer constant intermittent positive reinforcement. Cryptic algorithms rank posts so users never know when they’ll make a post that rockets to the top of a sub. Your karma total, awards, and badges are all displayed prominently on your profile. There are millions of anonymous users, and the reinforcement encourages them to stay on the site and post often. The subs are endless, from tech news and hobbies to the popular “Am I an Asshole?” As a result, the post volume is overwhelming, and the signal to noise poor.
Escapism and Zen
Lately, I’ve been looking at various ways Zen masters interpret the ten grave precepts. Classically there is a precept against giving or taking drugs (including alcohol). However, a more modern framing is “Proceed clearly – do not cloud the mind.” There is disagreement in American lay Buddhism about this precept. Theravada monks vowed to confess drinking even a drop of alcohol, but it is a minor offense. This suggests that that the grave precept is more concerned with intoxication. All forms of escapism, like drugs, gambling, consumerism, or spending too much time online cloud the mind. A cloudy mind interferes with practice and could lead to harmful actions. Drugs are a non-starter for me and alcohol has never been an issue. However, I’ve been escaping into Reddit lately instead of just using it constructively. Consumerism is another constant challenge, but that’s a topic for another time.
Online discussion does still have value. It’s always been the leading edge of information on the Internet. Blogs and even newspaper articles are one person’s unchallenged opinion. On a good message board information is shared, refined, challenged, and distilled. I’ve never had a problem with just reading. I’m not immune to chasing imaginary karma and notifications, and Reddit is endlessly fascinating. The place where I need to look at my motives is when I start answering questions. Recently something on /r/Buddhism caught my attention and I started answering some questions there. While I’m sometimes thanked for being genuinely helpful, I sometimes lose track of the fact that I’m contributing to the escapist nature of the Internet. Humans need to engage IRL communities like sanghas, not just run to social media for one-off answers.
Constructive Blogging
I’ve decided to try something I’ve always wanted to do. Instead of writing a lot on Reddit, I’m going to post here. I’ve always wanted to collect my writing in one place instead of just scattering paragraphs on a message board. Obviously, a blog is a great format. Perhaps someone else will even find it useful. That said, in Zen fashion I’m not concerning myself with the outcome. Instead, I’m just writing. I’ve also turned off comments for a lot of reasons, so there isn’t any worry about feedback. Perhaps at some point I’ll check page views but mostly to monitor server load. Hopefully this strategy will pivot me away from escaping into Reddit and doing some writing practice instead.
The image at the top of this page is a screenshot from the very cool https://rezmason.github.io/matrix/.
