I started using Google Reader 🪦 in 2007 in my freshman year at college. My blossoming ADHD ate it up. I subscribed to Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Boing Boing, all the nerd blogs of the time, plus my comics like Questionable Content and xkcd. It was a wonderful tool, where I could hit the refresh button and see if any new content was waiting for me, any time of day or night. The dopamine I got from clearing my unread items was heady—the anxiety from leaving the unread count above zero less so.

At the time, everything was still chronological. We hadn’t succumbed to the algorithms that have enshittified everything for the last few years. I’m hardly the first person to comment that Reader’s algorithm-free nature was part of what made it so great, but it is no less true for having been repeated.

The sites I followed, like Lifehacker, capitalized on my undiagnosed ADHD in a big way. They encouraged me to always try something new, always hunt for fresh content to consume. They contributed some positive things, of course, like encouraging the kind of note-taking I find valuable today, but on the balance they proved a destabilizing force at a difficult time.

Following Reader’s demise I bounced around. I tried Newsblur, Inoreader, Feedly. Eventually, I just… stopped. I realized most of the sites I was following were high-noise, low-signal. They contributed very little to my quality of life. Giving myself another refresh button to abuse was hurting me more than it helped. I went back to just pulling up QC every morning (or really, every evening minutes after posting).

This week I finally went back to Newsblur. It’s not the prettiest feed reader out there, but it’s open source and has a very affordable subscription. You can self-host it and still use their mobile app, if you want to. It offers an algorithm you can train yourself, but you can just as easily ignore it.

Why now? Well, I want to get back into the habit of writing more. I have some architecture projects coming up at work, and writing is as important as knowing the ins and outs of Postgres when you want to get people to buy into your idea. I also want to think out loud about the art and philosophy of my photography, and to do so in a coherent way. An essential part of the writing process is reading.

I started from scratch. My old OPML files with my feed subscriptions are long gone. I need a high-signal, low-noise way to keep up with what matters to me, and I want to get out of the habit of opening new tabs to check news sites for the nth time. Newsblur can still be that dopamine button, if I allow it to be, but it’s easier to manage that urge knowing that the feed items won’t be going anywhere until I check them.

Anyway, that’s my first blog post after a long time. Most of my college-era blogging is rightly consigned to the dustbin of the Internet.¹ I want to be more measured and intentional, and maybe take my time to think through stuff. Fewer opinions, more careful consideration. We’ll see how it goes.

1. Except that some of it, regrettably, is on The Wayback Machine. Sigh. ↩︎