I Miss the Internet We Used to Have

I miss a part of the internet that no longer exists. The version that felt expansive. Exciting. A gateway to something bigger. Now it feels smaller than ever, an echo chamber where everyone is talking and few people are actually saying anything.

The entire reason I created Ink & Agenda was to give myself a creative outlet that didn't require client approvals, deadlines, or staying inside someone else's parameters. Complete creative freedom. Instead, I found myself playing into the algorithm, trying to hack the game, improve SEO, optimize this, record that reel, follow this blueprint. And it left me ready to close up shop.

I am not new to the online world. My first DIY website went live in 2003. I can still see it in my mind: Papyrus font, "Live, Laugh, Love" across the top, three vertical photographs underneath. It wasn't polished. It wasn't optimized. It was fun.

2026 has felt heavy. A little winter blues. A little doom scrolling. A lot of re-evaluating how I interact with the online space and where I go from here.

I checked my digital wellbeing stats and saw an average of four hours a day on my phone. Yes, that includes calls, Slack, Spotify, and YouTube. But let's not pretend the bulk of that time wasn't social media.

Then I flipped through my journal. I started it on 2/8. Nearly every page had some version of the same thought written across it: I hate social media. When something shows up that consistently in ink, you pay attention.

I tried to rationalize it. Metrics over feelings. Data over intuition. But here's the truth: not a single one of my daily clients came from social media, and less than 10 percent of their clients come from social media either. So what exactly are we doing here?

Then I went down the rabbit hole of "how to quit social media and still run a business" and learned we spend about twelve years of our lives on our phones, consuming other people's lives. Twelve years. That's not a trend. That's a crisis. Present company included.

All of this led me back to one question: how do I find my lane, my voice, and my happiness in a world where social media and AI are dinner table conversations? Here's what I've decided.

Ink & Agenda is bringing back blogging. Long-form content is my love language. I am allergic to small talk. If you want depth, nuance, and a little bit of fire, pull up a chair. Social media will exist, but more like a sample size: less than one percent of the whole.

Next, we are bringing color and life back to planning. I fell into the minimalist gray trap: clean, neutral, safe. But I want color, pattern, play, which is saying something considering my wardrobe is black ninety-eight percent of the time.

And lastly, Ink & Agenda will stand for the version of everyday life many of us grew up with: white picket fences, riding bikes until the street lights came on, Sunday drives down back roads just because. Where we did not need an app to tell us how to use our imagination. We just did.

I am not stuffing my creativity into a box controlled by bots. If that means I am talking to myself for a while, so be it. I would rather build something honest than perform for something hollow.

Research and statistics behind the smartphone and screen-time reality this post is built on.