I wrote about resetting algorithms to keep from seeing the same old junk, but there is another side that needs exploration.

It’s that it’s perfectly fine to stop looking at the same stuff being offered on social networks, social media and websites. No one dies if you hit pause on the echo chambers. You might feel that way, but your concerns will be there when you get back.

It’s good to just reset yourself now and then. New speak calls it ‘self-care’, but to me that has become a platitude regurgitated by anyone who has seen memes on LinkedIn. Digital detoxification, whatever else, these are just fancy words that are bullet points that have no meat to them.

Do you know what self-care is? You can’t unless you know yourself, and as uncomfortable as you might be around yourself, you’re stuck with yourself for life. You can find all sorts of opinions all over the Internet. I don’t have one for you. What I’m saying is that it’s perfectly fine to explore other interests despite what the algorithms are offering you on your shopping websites, your social networks, and whatever you last saw scribbled on the bathroom wall. The last may actually be the healthiest for you.

If you take the age of humanity – draw the line where you will – and subtract your age, you will come up with the number of years that humanity has survived without needing to feed you information and get you increasingly emotional about topics, enough so that you’re hissing and spitting at other people online, or worse, standing with a group of people who all agree with your sentiments just so you can continue feeling safe.

The world isn’t safe. There are things that make us feel safe and comfortable. Like minded people (watch out when everyone starts dressing alike), new sheets, a cup of coffee, a really good steak or salad, or they same sort of content that you saw the day before. These do not really make us safe.

Beware oracles that always tell you what you want to hear instead of what you need to hear.

The first trick of getting out of an echo chamber is realizing you’re in one.