An argument for logging off

Imagine there are two concentric circles. A big one and a little one. The big one completely encompasses the little one.

In between them is a gap. The size of the gap between the circles has a direct correlation on how stressed or anxious I am. The bigger the gap, the worse I feel.

The inner circle includes all the things I have influence over. Influence, but not necessarily control. At the very center of this small circle is the one thing that I have control over, which is myself. Just me! That's it. My thoughts, attitude, perspective, actions. That's the only thing I really control. (And sometimes it feels like I barely control that.)

Moving out from the exact center, there are other things I can influence:

My work
Family
Friends
Some people online
Maybe my neighborhood or church
Maybe my city or state in some small way

We'll call this the Influence Circle. The closer we get to the edge, the less influence I have.

The second circle encompasses all the things I pay attention to, or at least the things that are vying for my attention:

Politics in states that I don't live in
National politics
International politics
Wars far from home
Inner workings of companies I'm not a part of
Whether git should be taught in school
The stock market
Is friend.com the solution to loneliness
Whether tests are good or bad

We'll call this the Information Circle.

I don't have any influence over any of these things. I can't change them. Sure I can vote, but come on, I'm not changing international politics. I'm just not. (I'm ok with this!) No matter how much I consume information about wars far from home, I'm not making a bit of difference in them. I can stress about the stock market all day, but I can't change it. Maybe I can change my own behavior based on the information I learn, but most times even that doesn't apply.

In the excellent book Amusing Ourselves to Death, the author, Neil Postman, quotes Thoreau as saying:

We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.

Writing in 1854 (!!), Thoreau pretty much nailed it. Having all information instantly accessible everywhere all the time has led us to be consumed by things that we'll never encounter, have no influence over, and in many cases don't change our lives at all. Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough! Yes, and?

To the extent that I worry about something beyond my circle of influence, I start to get anxious. I'm stuck in no man's land, in an "influence gap." I'm tuned into a thing, I want the thing to change, but I cannot change the thing. That can manifest as helplessness, hopelessness, excess media consumption, or just pure frustration.

Insidiously, the more energy I spend worrying about things outside of my control the less energy I have for things within my control. If I spend all my time impotently fretting over things that I can't influence, I forget about the things that I can influence. My work suffers. I don't want my work to suffer.

(Note that when I say "work" I don't mean spreadsheets, I mean the creative output of my one short life. (Double note that I do in fact like spreadsheets, but that's extremely beside the point.))

As far as I have seen, there are two ways to combat this: expand your Influence Circle or contract your Information Circle. (There's also a secret third way, a loophole.)

Contracting your Information Circle

This is the easiest one to execute, so we'll start here.

The world is trying to convince you to make your Information Circle bigger. The news and social media want you to care about everything. Because if you care, you click. If you care, you watch. If you click or watch, they make more money. I'm not making a moral judgement about the rules, but those are indeed the rules.

Twitter's algorithm has changed recently to put more content from far flung places right in front of you. Recently, there was an excellent article about this phenomenon on Twitter. The article focuses on the viral spread of a video of a man being murdered in New York City, 1,500 miles away from where I live. Horrific, sad, scary, probably not healthy to watch. In addition to all of that: it's not relevant to me.

"There's a DA in California that's not prosecuting someone for something! What does this say about California's future!"

I... don't know? Should I care? I don't live in California. And maybe the argument is "You should care because that means the country itself is changing." And what should I do with that information? Should I be mad that the country is changing?

It's not just the networks (news and/or social) that are trying to convince you to make your Information Circle bigger. It's individuals too! People are trying to convince you of the same. Even, likely, some well-meaning friends.

"Did you see Sam Altman got fired? And rehired? Then he purged his enemies? But oops then all his friends quit too?"
"Man, California is crazy huh? You can just steal stuff."
"Did you hear what the Vercel CEO said about pushing data to the edge?"

You can't pay attention to everything. In fact you mustn't! Energy is finite. By God you should spend it on things that you care about.

It's ok to say "Nope! I didn't see it."

It's ok to say "I don't know enough to have an opinion."

It's ok to say "Imma be honest, I have no clue what you're talking about." (This is the funniest option.)

You're going to surprise some people if you don't try to make up a plausible opinion on the spot, but I think you'll be happier for it. Plus it's always nice to surprise a friend.

The best way to shrink your Information Circle is to just log off. You don't need to be barraged with information about which you will worry and over which you have no control.

I'll admit that's drastic! I like being on Twitter! Maybe less now than I used to, but it's still moderately enjoyable to me as long as I don't overindulge. I have a lot of friends on Twitter that I want to keep up with. To try to keep the information barrage low, I've maintained an extremely long list of muted words, including:

the names of major politicians
every political word I could think of
phrases commonly associated with drama, clickbait, or ragebait
words related to the current thing that everyone is talking about (this varies)

I've also muted individuals that like to stir up controversy. That helps a lot! It can feel fun in the moment to engage in the drama of the day, but after it's all over it feels pretty useless. I'd rather do my work than argue with people on the internet.

As for the news, I've muted almost every news account as well. I think the news is mostly morally neutral, but incredibly useless in the day-to-day. I like to think of my news strategy as a "zooming out." I don't need to see the latest news as it happens. What's the biggest news item you remember from last month? What about last year? Exactly! I don't need to spend my precious time consuming content that will potentially make me anxious and also be irrelevant in a week. I don't need the news pushed in my face all the time. I want to be in control of when I consume the news.

The smaller you make your Information Circle, the more control you'll feel you have over your life. The amount of control you have on an absolute basis doesn't change, but you'll feel like you have more control. You'll focus on the things you can actually influence and ignore the things outside of your control. Your perceived agency will go up. It will feel great.

But some things are important enough to pay attention to. Some things are important enough (to you) to try to change. And for that we have Option 2.

Expand your influence

I believe this is your only other option. Caring about something over which you have no agency is stressful. (Unless it's entertainment, which we'll get to.) You have to either not care or you have to do something about it.

In all of history, the only reason anything has ever gotten done is because individuals with high agency decided that they wanted the world to be different and they worked like hell to make it so. Expanding your Circle of Influence is hard. It takes a lot of work. To actually affect change you have to work. Organize your community, sign petitions, run for office, start a company, change jobs, write, build, and generally do more than you've done.

Recently, here in the US, there was an obscure tax law that accidentally got sunset. It's a bad deal for software companies and it likely needs to be changed. There was a lot of talk about it online, but one person decided to actually do something about it. Michele Hansen formed the The Small Software Business Alliance to organize small business owners to contact congress.

Complaining about politics is easy! Grassroots organizing is hard! But if anything is going to change, someone has to do the work. It doesn't have to be you, but it can be you.

By all means, change the world! The world certainly needs changing. Just don't trick yourself into believing that worrying about something is the same as working on something. If it's beyond your influence, either don't worry about it or change your life such that you can influence it.

A third way: the entertainment loophole

Here's a loophole. Here's a free pass.

If you care about things beyond your influence scope just because it's fun, then please continue! If you want to know that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough because it's interesting for you and your friends to talk about, that's perfectly valid. (Do be warned that some things may start as pure entertainment but transform into something else altogether. Something that causes you anxiety because you cannot influence it.)

Following sports seems to be covered by this loophole. You can hang out on the forums, yell at the TV, listen to the drive-time radio shows, and never influence a single thing. But who cares! It's for entertainment! Enjoy yourself for goodness sakes.

If you're happy consuming information and becoming entwined with things far beyond your scope of influence simply because it's enjoyable, I don't see the harm. The harm (in my opinion) arises when you voraciously consume things beyond your influence and it causes you to fret, worry, or be angry.

But what's the point

It's all gonna be over soon and I don't want to waste my time. I don't want to look back and think "I wish I'd focused on things I could control" or "I wish I had created more" or, worst of all, "I wish I had had more energy for my family."

I don't need to influence global politics, I don't even need to influence national politics. I need to influence my four little kids. I need to produce work I'm proud of. I need to focus.

Thank you to all my friends that read this early and offered feedback. You can sign up to the newsletter below to help me refine articles before they're published.