furbies, the internet in your pocket, and AI

I wrote before about my information diet, and while most of my writing in the last couple of weeks has been about nutrition for athletes, I believe health is holistic. Beyond mental and physical health, we’ve got social and emotional and spiritual health to mind, and almost all of us have some digital health to keep up with too. Here’s a little bit about how I’m thinking about my digital health in these AI-dominated times.

Disclaimer(?): I know that writing about AI can feel alienating or polarizing for some people. I feel incredibly lucky to have friends who are determined not to use AI for moral reasons, who have used it less than a handful of times, and also friends and colleagues who are using and working on what feels like cutting edge AI capabilities. All I can do is be thoughtful about my own experiences, and true to who I know I am: someone who loves and believes in people and progress, loves to build and create, and loves to connect and share. Thank you to the people who are thoughtful about their experiences, and true to themselves too. On we go 🤝

Often, what I find most outstanding about AI is not that it is seemingly everywhere, doing everything, but that with its existence, the slope of the technological advancement line my generation has been riding has somehow gotten even steeper than it already was. I remember when we got dial-up internet at home. I grew up in such a rural place that I never had anything faster than satellite internet until I got to college in 2008. Around the same time as I got introduced to actually reliable internet, the internet in our pocket phones started to take over, and the slope of that line got even steeper. Then came social media, and here we are today, with AI, everywhere.

I think most of us actually want to have a lot less of the internet in our pockets. Maybe you’ve tried hacks like turning your screen to black and white, or turned off your notifications, or installed something like Clearspace, or gotten a Brick, or even went as far as buying a ‘dumb’ phone. I heard on NPR this morning that Meta is settling a 17 billion dollar lawsuit related to child safety, and it was the latest in a long list of reminders that in the future, it seems pretty likely that we’ll look at social media the way we look at cigarettes- it’s obviously not good for you, and it’s addicting as hell.

Unfortunately, while the scientific evidence and predominant belief may become that social media is awful for your health, and that having the internet in your pocket is just not necessary, I don’t think social media or constant connectedness is going anywhere, and I’m not even really trying to completely untangle myself from the web. (Another, totally intended pun. 😉) It might seem like the best choices I could have made for myself 20 or so years ago would have been to hang on to my motorola RZR as long as humanely possible, or never take advantage of that .edu email address that was required for me to create a Facebook account. I don’t think I would have made that choice though, and it’s not the same choice I’m making with AI usage today.

I’m not about to give up the things I use AI for. I have built a ton of fun little apps for myself- this whole website is thanks to the capabilities of Claude code. In the process of building things, I’ve learned a lot too. I am really cheering for the “bespoke solutions” future. Imagine a world where we mostly build what we want or need and solve our own problems. Sure, there’s trade offs, but there’s a lot of cool stuff too! If you haven’t ‘vibe coded’ something for yourself yet, and you want to, hit me up. I would actually love to be the one who introduces you to vibe coding, as much as I’d like to be the person who introduces you to the best chocolate chip cookie you’ve ever had. I’m that serious about it.

One thing I do have now, that I didn’t have when I got my first smartphone and my Facebook account (besides fully developed frontal lobes) is some intention. When I first started using Instagram, I could not have possibly imagined the concept of a ‘creator’ or an ‘influencer.’ Honestly, I probably would have thought that was weird and unsafe. Why would I be talking to people I didn’t even know? This wasn’t Tumblr! Now, with my frontal lobes, I see some lessons from the creator economy- creating and curating is actually a really powerful skill set.

As I continue to embrace AI use, I am trying to really refine how I use AI to create. I love to write, and I started writing and sharing my writing here because I think we’re rapidly entering a world where most of what we see online is not 100% human, and I want to hang on to my online humanity. I also think writing is a great way to think- I attribute this quote to George Markoulakis, a great manager I worked for previously, but the original quote comes from David McCullough: “Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard.” I’m not using AI to help me write (You can check me with Pangram if you want!) and it’s because as AI continues to change the world around me, I think it’s more important than ever to think clearly. I also think it’s more important than ever to do hard things. This isn’t a new belief of mine, it’s also why I run, and why I work, and why I do a lot of things: I believe in people and progress, and you have to have a challenge to make progress.

I am using AI to create things like a game to think how to build a breakfast with 30g of protein in it. Does anyone need that game? Of course not! Did creating it bring me joy, and help me think about broader ‘smooshier’ things like what I value and why I value it? What do I want to put out into the world? What do I want people to walk away thinking or feeling after they interact with me and the things I’ve created? Yep, it also did all of those things.

I don’t think that my intentions need to really be that deep either- I write because I like it, and I vibe-code because I like to build stuff, and all of that is just practice. Really, all of life is just practice. I’m not sure what for, but I’m a big believer that the practice and the process is actually where champions are made.

If you’ve been going through the process of writing, or practicing building things, or have progress to share about your own curating and creating, send it my way! If you’re curious what some of the non-AI writing I’ve been reading looks like, I’m including some links below. And, like I said above, if you’ve never used AI to build yourself something, let me be the first to tell ya, you should Nike that shit (by which I mean, just do it, and don’t even bother thinking too much about it, like they’ve done with many of their marketing campaigns!)

Links

The Roads She Runs: A substack written by my running coach, Jenna Bensko. I love Jenna’s writing. It’s so much more poetic than my own, and I love the vulnerability she brings. I also love a chance to peep into her own hopes and dreams as a runner as I trust her with my running hopes and dreams too.

Fast Women: Another running focused Substack written by Alison Wade. I started reading this because running content that is quality, and focused purely on women is actually hard to come by. Alison brings it straight to my inbox every week, and many of the stories she’s shared remind me of my belief in people and in progress.

Wait but Why: The post I linked is specifically the one that David brought to me when we first started dating, and it gave us a framework for figuring out whether our epic friendship had the legs to run the ultra marathon of marriage. Both of our wedding vows included some heavy references to this piece of writing, so of course it will always be meaningful to me. I also think a sign of great writing is that it’s useful to people, and gives them something they can use to think about their own lives. It’s something I strive for myself, and look forward to getting better at.