Every year at Christmas time, social media is buzzing with messages like, “Bye, I'm off for a digital detox!” Between Christmas and New Year's, people take a break from content production, say goodbye to the public until early January, and use their digital unavailability for self-care. After another year of constant algorithmic bombardment and digital sensory overload, this retreat seems like an act of self-defense. And that's what it is, at least on an individual level.
But as much as we need these breaks, they do little to solve the underlying problem. We are not withdrawing because we spend too much time in the digital space, but because the digital spaces we use every day are becoming increasingly toxic. So, for Christmas, we are pulling the plug for now. Just as many people flee from poor working conditions for two weeks in the summer, only to continue enduring them afterwards.
This self-imposed abstinence may provide short-term relief, but after the detox break, most people return to the same platforms. Contrary to all hopes, however, these have not improved in the meantime – quite the opposite: even more advertising, even more tracking, even more algorithmic control. Welcome back! From detox to retox.
Enshittification: How platforms decline
Cory Doctorow describes this process with a drastic but apt term: enshittification. This refers to the systematic decline of digital platforms, which is not an operational accident but rather the actual business model. Platforms start out open and community-oriented. But as subscriptions increase and dependence grows, the tables suddenly turn: digital platforms begin to monetize attention, limit visibility, scale back service, and squeeze users and creators.
In short, to use Doctorow's words, the offering becomes increasingly shitty. Users feel this decline and vent their anger in online forums – but how do they want to hold tech companies accountable? What remains are social spaces that drain us, but from which we can hardly escape. Not necessarily out of habit, but because social, professional, and political participation are now closely linked to them. Digital detox makes an increasingly toxic state temporarily more bearable without changing it structurally. This does not slow down the increasing deterioration, but rather stabilizes it.
What can we do?
If digital detox doesn't solve the problem, we need to address the conditions under which we are digitally connected. The answer lies not in individual withdrawal, but in changing the infrastructure. We don't need a symbolic break, but a strategy for leaving exploitative platforms as soon as possible. The first step is to take a sober inventory: Which digital services do we use every day? Which of these are really necessary for work, social relationships, or political participation? And which exist primarily for convenience or habit?
The next step is to remove these functions from the platform logic. Many central services can now be easily self-hosted or operated collaboratively. For cloud storage, calendars, and collaboration, for example, open-source solutions such as Nextcloud can be operated independently or by European providers. Guidance is available from platforms such as European Alternatives, which bundles European alternatives to cloud services and SaaS products, or overviews of open-source alternatives, as documented by DreamHost, among others.
Communication and collaboration don't have to run on proprietary platforms either. With the open Matrix protocol, chat, voice, and video services can be organized in a federated manner. Clients such as Element or self-hosted solutions such as Rocket.Chat replace Slack, Teams, or Discord - with full control over data, access, and moderation. Having your own infrastructure means full control and the freedom to decide for yourself. Every service that is brought back from dependence on Big Tech reduces structural vulnerability.
At the same time, a conscious shift in social spaces is needed. Instead of relying on centralized platforms, we can use or help build networks that we control ourselves or collectively own. Federated social networks such as Mastodon or Pixelfed show that social publicity can also function without constant algorithmic optimization. This requires active use and collaborative maintenance of such infrastructures.
All the time, creativity, attention, and money that currently flows into exploitative platforms can be redirected into our own infrastructure and collaborative networks. This approach is supported by organizations such as the Free Software Foundation Europe, which advocates for digital self-determination, initiatives such as Public Money? Public Code! and the European Commission's European Open Source Strategy.
Platforms such as netzpolitik.org and the Center for Digital Rights and Democracy offer journalistic and activist support as well as critical analysis.
In this way, a digital public sphere can gradually emerge that is designed for sustainability rather than extraction. Not a detox, only to continue as before, but a conscious withdrawal from toxic infrastructures and a collective move to spaces made for people, not corporations.