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Feedback Loop

Over the years, I  have had an on and off relationship with this blog as far as using it as a medium to connect to the world. In the alone years, it was a one of the ways to feel I existed in the world through the online conversations that started here and sometimes resulted in ongoing friendships. In the less alone or busy years, I felt the need to write whatever came to mind without desiring any communication at all. It was a keeping up the schedule and the practice so as to not lose this habit that took a while to gel. No different that keeping up the exercise and reading habits. If anything served well over time, it is worth keeping. Reading this Wired story helps me understand what drove me to taper off the social and communication elements online

Without the ability to find out how their identity is ricocheting around the virtual world, people often feel a fight-or-flight response when they’ve been online for many hours—and even after they’ve logged off.

It takes a lot of time online to grow and maintain that level of feedback loop and it comes at a certain cost. When a person is largely alone and needs to feel seen and counted, the investment may offer value. When that is not the case, it calls for carving out from the scarce resource of alone time to feed this habit. Comes a time when the value ceases to exist - that was my experience at least. 

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