Our lives are frittered away by status updates. At The Millions Edan Lepucki describes quitting Twitter and Facebook cold turkey.
The level of my family’s discourse often centers around the best new television commercials (I always wanted to be raised by professors, discussing Marxism and whatnot, but as my father would say, “People in hell want ice water.”) In the post-television days, I remember feeling a vague alienation whenever these conversations began, my sister waxing poetic about the latest Volkswagen ad, everyone else nodding. During my internet detox, I began to feel this way a lot, and not just with my family, but with my friends, too. All conversations seemed to begin with, “Did you see on Facebook…” I was suddenly an outsider, and I felt equal parts annoyed, superior and wistful.
