It's okay to like the internet

really.

Hi, I’m Katie, a writer and podcaster and I believe that literature, art, beauty, theology, and wonder are worth our time and attention. This essay was free for you to read, but took time and research to write - consider upgrading to a paid subscription to support the work I do.

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Here’s one way the internet has changed the way we have conversations. We qualify everything. Any statement must have a quick aside, an acknowledgment of the validity of other opinions, lest you get trapped into a binary or absolute you aren’t claiming.

It can go like this -

“I’m so glad I left my desk job to stay home with my kids… But of course not everyone has that luxury and also not everyone wants to stay home and also women should absolutely work if they want to and also it’s important to have female voices in the marketplace of ideas, don’t get me wrong!”

or

“I really love that even at a young age our kids really like books… Of course not all kids do and that’s totally fine and I obviously just want them to follow their passions and science and math are also very important and there are so many amazing ways to learn and also the world literacy rate is so low, it’s really such a privilege to even be reading at all!”

or

“I cannot believe the policies of x political candidate, what is wrong with x party!… Of course, not all Republicans/Democrats are this way and there is so much I agree with on either side and it’s really so complicated, I mean ever since Clinton, no really since Reagan, but really much before that, when the parties basically swapped and it really isn’t even worth labeling a political party at all, they’re so divorced from their original principles…” and so on, and so on.

Anyway, you get the gist. Some of this is good. Nuance! I’m completely here for that. Actually I would say nuance is one of my ‘foundational values,’ probably because I am someone formerly prone to black and white thinking. As a teenager who loved debate and loved being right (even more than your average teen, I’d say) I really enjoyed taking a hard line, sticking to it, and seeing my less-sure opponents give up their wobbly stances quite quickly. It’s amazing what can pass as ‘right’ when said with bullish confidence.

But life went on. I changed my mind on about a hundred foundational ideas, went from an atheist to a pretty traditional Catholic, got an M.A. in Conflict Resolution, did field work in Rwanda and South Africa where the wounds of genocide and apartheid are still raw. I watched the 2016 and 2020 elections play out. So many statements, so much posturing, so much our side is the right side, end of story, talk. I’ve truly had enough of hard lines. I have too many friends, too many family members, of varying political and religious ideations to even be able to pretend anyone has it figured out.

So qualifying one’s opinions or stances makes sense. But really I think it often comes less out of a desire for nuance than a defensive knee-jerk response to being called out in the comments section. You have to write and talk in a way that you won’t get trapped. Because really we’re all online calling each other out in a sort of endless gotcha! cycle. I almost qualified this statement - I want to write now - Some of this is good of course! We need to be held accountable about some things! Goodness, it’s hard to write anything in the year of our lord 2024!

It must have been so fun to be a real character back in the day, waving around one of those Audrey Hepburn cigarette holders, making outrageous remarks. What a card! they’d say. At least that’s how I imagine it would go. Instead we’re all tittering little field mice¹ - Oh don’t take this the wrong way, but, but…

Really I started writing this because I feel a lot of tension within myself regarding this online world we inhabit much of the time. I have written ad nauseam at this point about the perils of social media and my own choice to stay off legacy social media. These posts are usually the most read and commented and shared. I also usually get quite a few emails from people with similar struggles or who are trying to navigate the role they want social media or even just technology generally to play in their lives. And because Substack, like all internet forums these days, invites niche readerships and niche communities, I read a lot about analog life and tech-lite living in Notes or in my subscriptions.

But now there’s a new bit of griping going around. It started earlier in the year when, quite all at once, a number of people (myself included) started getting a bit irritated with Substack. Why was it getting so, well, social media like? The Notes feed was one thing, but now the messaging and the commenting and the keep that content coming lest you lose your subscribers! It’s easy to fall into frantic-writing-posting-commenting and it’s also easy to have FOMO when you simply cannot read ten long form essays a day.

So I decided to start publishing a little less, as much as a favor to my readers as anything else. But also because I now work a lot more in a professional capacity (hey, we started a business this year!) and it’s going well! This is great! But I have less free time and I am someone who needs to spend significant quantities of time offline to feel sane and present and get good sleep. So I turn off the phone after 8:30PM and read novels from the library or go the gym. This is the right choice for me.

But is it the right choice for everyone?

Maybe, maybe not. The tech-lite Substack groups I follow do get a little tsk tsk sometimes, noting that many people who write about getting offline sure do seem to spend a lot of time online!

But maybe for someone with young kids who doesn’t have a spouse with a flexible schedule (as I do at the moment) reading Substack articles or writing for their audience is completely life giving. It could even be what is keeping them grounded and present in their real world. They also may simply be unable to join the in-person book club or invite people over for dinner because they have a baby going through a sleep regression. But what they can do is take that uninterrupted hour and cozy up with their laptop and feel like an adult for a little while, an adult with creative interests and passions who is (thanks to the internet) able to connect in meaningful ways with other adults.

Not everything online is bad. Much of technology is very good. In the past month I’ve conducted remote interviews with people around the world, both for Born of Wonder and for the professional audio work I’m doing, often during nap time, always from the comfort of our home office. The hard-line choices my mother had to make - stay home or work - are more (dare I say) nuanced for me - because of technology, because of the internet. And thank goodness for my smartphone! (yes I did write once about how I wanted to get rid of it…). I simply could not work as a producer in 2024 and also be at home with kids without email notifications and the ability to dash off a quick note. I just couldn’t.

And frankly the fact that there are people here on Substack who are willing to pay money for these newsletters, well, it is not only genuinely practically helpful, it is incredibly validating. So maybe you just started a Substack and are feeling like you missed the boat because the Substack old timers are already waxing philosophic about the good old days - please don’t. This is a great place to be and the fact that you want to write here is a good, good thing. And maybe you want to hustle and spend a little extra time online to grow your subscriber base.

Ironically, I think this whole essay has been one big qualifier. Maybe I can’t escape my need for nuance after all. What I’m saying is, many of us are simply sharing what works for us in this moment. Take what works, leave what doesn’t, but also don’t take it as a personal indictment. Only you can define these boundaries and what works for you.

And for all my nostalgia - all my dusty paperbacks and stacks of vinyl - I’ll say, it’s okay to like being a modern person. To say, you know, that village life was a beautiful thing, but there was also a lot of xenophobia and loneliness and sadness, too. Nothing’s perfect. I do think life is better lived in the ‘the real world’ - but that real world can include your time on the internet. Absolutely.

My search for the Utopia continues. Right now that looks like time in the outdoors, jogs at the gym, Taylor Swift’s Cornelia Street Live from Paris blasting in my headphones, phone off at night, warm-hearted library reads, and trying not to overthink everything. Oh, and also the internet. Yes, using the internet and writing on the internet and being just fine with that.

As one of my professors, the former research director of the TRC used to say (in his big booming South African voice), “This is not the kingdom of God! But we have to try anyway!”

That’s all we can do, really.

There’s a line in You’ve Got Mail (which represents my tech-life ideal in so many ways) when Kathleen Kelly writes to Joe Fox:

“The odd thing about this form of communication is that you're more likely to talk about nothing than something. But I just want to say that all this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings.”

So that’s really what I’d like to say.

All this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings.

cheers x

Katie

And hey, if you want to have some real-world conversations about all this over a pint, why not join me and

Christy Isinger

in Ireland this coming October? It’s nearly St. Patrick’s Day and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than signing up for this trip. We’ll be going to sheep herding demonstrations, visiting Our Lady of Knock, sampling whiskey at the oldest distillery in Ireland, touring an ancient monastery, hiking St. Patrick’s mountain, having High Tea at a castle, seeing the Book of Kells and Trinity Library, doing a literary pub crawl… Really, it’s got it all.

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1. Is this a phrase people use? I think I’ve been reading one too many Beatrix Potter stories.