Lemmen's Nursery

My Open Wikipedia Tabs

By Danny lemmen |

I deleted Reddit from my phone. I sort of think algorithmic social media fucks up our brain the same way cheeseburgers fuck up our hearts, and I am trying to let my brain eat healthier.

The Reddit app was on my phone’s front page with other apps I use most regularly (although none was tapped as involuntarily, habitually, unconsciously, etc. as the white alien face in the orange circle). Removing the app meant I needed to replace it with something else.

I did consider rearranging the remaining apps, but since these were all my most used apps I didn’t want to have to disturb my right thumb’s muscle memory. With that thought in mind I decided to put some brain-veggies in the space where I would probably still be instinctively tapping whenever I got bored and needed TBD cc’s of dopamine. So, that spot is now occupied by the Wikipedia app.

This worked surprisingly well. Later that night when I should be going to sleep, but had normally been scrolling for 45-90 minutes, I tapped on the serif W.

The Wikipedia app has a home tab of its own. It’s called explore, and it has a feature article, trending articles, and a picture of the day. There is an algorithmic component at work here as well, but it is comparatively tame.

It also has all the tabs saved from my last year or so of Wikipedia searches, which I found pretty funny, and wanted to share. These are in order from least to most recent. Enjoy.