Hey all,

The inception of this new version of rambl has come along with a personal journey of mine. I've slowly been going through a "digital detox" by trying to be more conscious of my time online and cut out unnecessary distractions. Years ago I deleted most of my social media accounts because I felt they were unnecessary, and on top of that, they were monopolizing a lot of my time. Like a lot of people I felt ashamed by how much of my time was spent consuming mindless content served to me by algorithms rather than engaging with the world around me in a meaningful way. And I don't blame anyone who uses and likes these platforms, I can admit there's good stuff on them. I just kinda snapped out of it one day and realized I had an addiction. And ever since then I've tried to do more to be intentional about how I use technology. I'm still far from perfect in this regsrd but I think I've made some good steps.

Some more recent changes I've made to my technology habits include:

• Switching to fokus launcher on my phone, so I'm not as tempted to fall into distraction from the home screen
  
• Putting a bluetooth handset on my bedside table and leaving my phone in the living room when I go to bed (and basically never taking my phone into the bedroom anyway)
  
• Switching to RedReader for browsing Reddit on my phone, since it removes the algorithm and only shows me posts from my subscribed communities. (This has cut down on my time on reddit significantly because I can't just scroll/refresh endlessly, it only updates once every few hours.)

It might be worth it for you to consider how much time you spend on your devices and whether it's stopping you from living the life you want to live, and maybe make some changes to your habits accordingly. It could start with something as simple as deleting an app. I can tell you that it has helped me significantly with the feeling that my time and life are dominated by technology. Take back your brain and make technology work for you!

-kilo