Big Ups To Small Internet

A couple weeks ago, one of our community members shared a meme I really liked:

The Small Internet

I know I find this #relatable based on oh, lets see, all the time that I close my laptop to end a wikipedia deep dive and immediately open my phone to check the weather but end up on imdb to check movie runtimes to see what I have time to watch before bed.

Or all the time at work when Im tired of working in a spreadsheet so I check Slack on my phone instead of Slack on my laptop because im still kind of mad at my laptop for being where the spreadsheet is.

Or, well you probably get it. You might even be reading this from your phone about 30 seconds after waking up because you aren't ready to be awake yet. The small internet that lives on our telephones is great for times like these but this isn't the only kind of small internet.

Small Internet can also be on the big internet, but as a part of that big internet that feels smaller through intentional control and deliberate actions. Earlier tonight I wrote the inaugural post for this community blog. In that post I commemmorated (roughly) a month of our mastodon community existing. In that time I've totaled almost 60 'toots', and have only about a dozen follows and followers. I assume I post more than most of our members but even so this makes for a very relaxed pace and feel.

Part of the way through the past month I admit I was a little worried about whether anyone else was having a good time or finding anything that really “stuck” for them about posvib.es. We kept posting though, and members popped in on their own time and in their own ways. Our pace feels pretty nice now, and for my personal preferences is helped along by push notifications from the mobile app I use (I should actually say apps plural, and my thoughts on testing a handful of the apps out there should make a nice post in the future).

Id like to encourage you to think about the internet you interact with day to day. How does the tempo or tone of this information make you feel? I know I've enjoyed adding some more small internet to the rotation even if Im admittedly only seeing friends there that I already see in other parts of the small and big internets and in the real world. Even if you aren't looking to completely ditch big internet for a solitary corner of the small, you might find that you enjoy creating a space where you can control a what you find in front of you a little bit more.

Big Ups To The Small Internet

Thomas