Membrane

Backstory: this piece originally came about after being cold-emailed in the fall of 2025 to contribute a piece to a new online magazine. The magazine never materialized (and neither did the promised commission). After half-heartedly shopping it around to some niche online magazines I decided to simply publish it here on my own website. If you read it, let me know what you thought? I’d love to hear your thoughts and critical feedback. Contact details are on the frontpage.

Written on my keyboard by my hands in my nerdy-ass text editor (Vim) over months at a time.

2026-10-08

A person without skin is not a person for long. We have ‘skin in the game’; she’s ‘thick-skinned’. A metaphor for a reason, our skin is the membrane that delineates some notion of ‘us’ from the world. I am because we exist apart. Membranes allow us to interface with the world and remain intact, to some degree, after the fact.

The communities we accept and embed ourselves into are as membranes. Letting some things in and keeping other things out. News, discourse, worldviews, memes. Our communities and the information sources we take in overlap and compose a single large informational membrane. Surface area for novelty. Just as we are as we eat, so we think about that which we encounter. What we encounter, whether direct or indirect, is what passes through the membrane.

Like bodily membranes, this informational membrane has an ability to filter out the unwanted. But resistance wanes, causing the ability to filter to weaken. Imbalances impact the health of the membrane, making it leak. When the membrane distorts we feel as if inflamed, red-hot like the inflammation of a fresh wound. Negativity becomes the default. Arguments and distractions increase and time spent actuating change and creation decreases.

The informational membrane is of information technology. Sprung from networks. Instantiated in the act of information transmission, whether true or false.

Informational membranes as potential capability

Informational membranes shape our lives. We take in what is presented, not what is true. Our viewpoints, shaped by interactions with informational membranes, influence the spaces we inhabit, and the foods we eat, and the skills we learn. Outcomes from our choices and circumstances impact our bodies, brains, and minds. Safe social interactions light up other parts of our brains than threatening ones. How we spend our time shapes our body and general health; the health of the body and brain influences the states of the mind.

In pursuit of the goals we set ourselves, we navigate the membrane. We seek connection and community and professional standing. We traverse networks for answers to questions recently discovered. We turn to feeds in misguided attempts for rest and relaxation.

At its best, when the membrane aligns with our well-being, we build widened, durable, and nuanced understandings of topics. Grow and nurture relationships that lead us into the world and away from screens. Tap into inspiration leading to lasting change and life-sized course corrections. At the very least, we access new and otherwise unavailable information from which to draw conclusions, erect new hypotheses, and launch new queries and quests.

When I think about how the membrane has worked in my favor I can feel a sense of vertigo. Tracing its contours has brought me to stay with friends in Northern Italy and Hawai’i. Camping in the Welsh mud. These are friendships of the membrane. People I met and got to know because of intense Internet use and engaging with different kinds of Internet-based networks over time. Treasured memories of happenings like these make it hard to disentangle the trade-offs. How much scrolling happens in between making new friends?

Another facet of following where the membrane flows is how it affects and enables freelancers like myself. For the past half decade all my income has passed through the membrane. Protocol implementation, peer-to-peer research, website work, writing. Initially unsuccessful interviews have lead to fantastic collaborations on meaningful projects. It has made opportunities appear whether in-person or email inbox, as if sprouted from seeds scattered while wading through the Net.

A pause to consider drawbacks. Does the flow of income pay for the time spent? I have traded away parts of my days following rabbit-holes of comparisons for products I don’t buy. Countless hours of life spent watching cooking videos on YouTube. If the trail I trod going from my feed to my email to the news and back again were physical, how deep would I have made it by now? I wonder if can I keep my access to the membrane’s serendipity while changing my pattern of Internet use. I want to mitigate the cyclical attention span I experience when opening the flood gates of stimuli. The feeds, the emails, the group chats. I think about how to balance the good in a way that outnumbers the bad.

A membrane metaphor

Consider the membrane in terms of how we interact with food.

Food is not neutral. Some foods are good for us practically no matter the amount, others foods are good only if consumed in moderation, and others yet best if avoided. Which foods we eat depends on what has been promoted through tradition and locality, well-meaning advice, or advertisement. Modern nutrition science advocates not so much for particular foods as for healthy dietary patterns. Combinations that balance each other and together promote health.

A single instance of a specific food doesn’t matter in the long run. What matters is the pattern of food. A burger once a day is a different dietary pattern then a burger once a month. In this case, the daily pattern is unhealthier. When trying to change an existing pattern, consider the substitutions you can make. When switching out the daily burger, what takes its place? Swapping in a bean salad and steamed sweet potatoes is a move to a healthier pattern. A bean burrito on the go also fits the healthier pattern. Swapping the daily burger for a daily pizza keeps the pattern unchanged.

Returning to the membrane, some sources of information are better for us than others. Certain use-patterns are self-limiting. Others require restraint lest we lose our time and minds. Using feeds 30 minutes a day is a different pattern than using feeds every 30 minutes. When you constrain your feed usage, what takes it place? What space is created?

When I restricted my feed use, by leaving my smartphone off until late in the afternoon, I created space to read. Whether for learning or pleasure. Dislodging time during breakfast, lunch, and breaks scattered throughout the day. Time I filled with books. Like the hardcover I’m reading, “Ingen Surf - Jonas Gren” (No Surf - Jonas Gren). In it, a poet recounts life and experiments into minimizing Internet use. Learning how and why he chose an office space 7km (4.3 miles) away from access to the Internet. His use of a feature phone; the ensuing troubles and workarounds. Inside I mark observations and titles of mentioned books with a reservoir pen. The pen has a turquoise plastic body filled with a deep blue ink. Time to read PDFs—sometimes of books, sometimes of webpages—on a tablet. I mark sections to revisit or to commit to memory. This is space I had less of with my phone always on. This membrane massage calms me and brings me closer to how I want to spend my time.

I am not a saint, I lapse time and time again. Some days I wake up weary and with less willpower reserve; periods of being ill and slovenly using my phone put bad habits back in place. But in between the lapses I enjoy the fruits of a calmer mind, lengthening the time until the next lapse just that much more.

There are discernible differences between different types of information sources. Below I classify the differences using a push vs pull dichotomy. The familiar phrase “enable push notifications” comes from the push-based flow. Data is pushed out from some producer to a recipient (you), potentially causing an interruption. Blip - new message / email / podcast / headline.

Pull-based flows flip the script. The recipient initiates the flow, not something external. Think of it as when reading a book. You decide to read a particular book. You stay on a page for as long you as want before you decide to turn the page and see new information. Or you place your bookmark, close the book, leaving pages unread until next time. In the pull-based flow, another book doesn’t doesn’t pop up out of nowhere in front of the book you were already reading. Pages aren’t spontaneously turned and viewed. You decide what you are reading. You decide when and you decide how.

We can dissect the membrane’s information sources using this dichotomy. Push. Pull.

The push-based layer

The membrane’s push-based layer has unsurprising information sources. News media and social media. Entertainment ecosystems for videos, movies, and podcasts. I think of these sources as forms of algomedia. Sources that are in some way informed by machine learning recommendations observing us. The push-based layer also has other sources of novelty that don’t center algorithmic recommendations, like group chats and email inboxes. I also include the smartphone into the category, as it defaults to being a promoter of push-centric sources.

What unifies push-based sources is, ironically, the strong pull towards engagement we viscerally feel. The Pull probably results from the slot machine-like interaction model: nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, prize! I reflexively refresh information sources in a state reminiscent of hypervigilance. Checking to see if a new email has arrived or for a response on a thread or to see if I have a new chat message. The times I am intermittently rewarded (new email, notification, message) strengthens the draw of the loop.

Another convergence point is the ease with which we lose ourselves. I pick up my phone to sift a tab out from among idling hundreds, only to see I’ve had a new message from a friend. I answer the message and then check a few Signal group chats. I switch to my browser, scroll through my Mastodon feed. Bookmark a couple articles that look interesting and open a few others as tabs. The tab I was going to look for remains forgotten until I finally return to what I was doing before and remember. I pick up my smartphone…

The pull-based layer

If the push-based layer is extrinsic in nature, its unanticipated events grabbing our attention, then information sources in the pull-based layer tend towards the intrinsic. Reading books and papers and personal websites. Conducting self-directed exploration and research. Talking in-person. Walking and thinking. The insights that appear through writing and making thoughts tangible. These activities are often self-limiting. It is possible to feel full and content. From a state of contentment I can decide to do something else without exerting too much willpower.

Engaging with pull-based sources feels as if it is fuzzily goal-directed. Usually I read a particular book for a particular reason. Maybe it’s for leisure, or to learn about a person with fame to their name. In the idealized view of how I’d spend my time, I read to improve a skill. Often I read just to fall asleep. This fuzzy goal-directed property sees us set out with a particular goal in mind, but we may end up somewhere else as a result of the process. Like when discussing with a close friend. A good in-the-flesh-and-blood discussion effortlessly veers with twists and turns. This feels similar to my experience going out on walks. My attention hops from one thought to another. Thoughts are interleaved with observations of birds, leaves, the occasional other human.

Pull-based sources promote longer and deeper contact. But the rhythm is different; less compulsive. More staccato. Intense effort is broken up by moments of staring into nothing. Chewing on what’s taken in. Even when opening multiple browser tabs in a fit of research, I do so with the aim to process them in the same session. Sometimes I print them away from the temptation of the screen as a processing step. This is a different interaction model than opening tabs while browsing social media. There, in social media land, non-stop surface-level skimming causes longer-form content to often stay unseen. Hoarded for some indeterminate later. Guzzling information until out of breath.

Membrane health

When the membrane is healthy it acts in your interest, in many ways. Broadening your understanding and keeping you informed. Helping you solve problems through your network and relationships. With a healthy membrane you become more capable of acting in the world. I’ve experienced this when sending a followers-only post, asking for feedback on a project. On the back of that came more offers of help than I have fingers. The communities we weave as part of a healthy membrane possess a lot of power.

It is different when the membrane is dysfunctional. Dysfunction can take many forms. Chronic use that siphons time, energy, and skill that could have otherwise nurtured restorative hobbies or relationships. Misinformation causing damage to physical health, as when adopting exercise or nutrition beliefs that go against scientific consensus. Not only physical health is at risk from misinformation but also our relationships. How people fall into conspiracy theories for years, alienating loved ones due to convincingly-crafted media.

I think what keeps the membrane healthy is balancing the two layers. Pull-based sources are deeper and more exploratory. They contribute to the type of wide comprehension that can act as a filter and ground truth. In this way the pull-based layer helps us vet beliefs and opinions that leak through the push-based layer. On the other hand, the push-based layer keep us in touch with what is actually happening outside of ourselves. It is a tether to the world.

That book about the poet without Internet? I came across it while browsing Mastodon, a non-commercial text-centric social media. Someone I followed shared a link to a newspaper where they had reviewed it. I’m glad I browsed my feed that day to discover it. It’s one of the best books I read the entire year. I started writing this piece before reading the book. Reading it has helped clarify what I’m writing about.

Restraint & tension

How do we regulate our interactions with the membrane? Seeing as one layer self-limits and the other has limitless appetite, this balancing act can be difficult. On the collective level, one way would be to impose restrictions on corporations. We could prohibit profit-making in the realm of social media. Restrict all kinds of surveillance and information gathering of individuals. Considering the negative effects (over-consumption, hate-speech magnification, etc) I think it would be wise of societies to impose intense public benefit-minded limits on large company-run recommender systems.

On the individual level, I think that to maintain membrane health we need to practice restraint.

I see restraint not as a lack but as a way to maintain an essential tension, like the tension of a taut rope. Tension can create momentum and strength. I’ve found this to be true in restraining my own push-based information intake.

As someone who works with computers from home, I can only make the push-based layer work by sticking to personal rules. I limit interaction with push-based sources to the late afternoon. I observe rituals for how to store and use my devices. When my phone is on I have notifications and sounds off, making sure to keep it out of pocket and out of sight. When I go to bed I power down my phone and place in another room and out of any sight lines. To better resist any low-willpower impulses while my brain is waking up the next day.

I do these things because when I start my day with news and social media, I feel like that presets what I think about. It also impacts my focus. When I’ve had a taste of social media during the day I feel a strong draw to visit again. Resisting the draw means exerting willpower, leaving me with less of that finite resource to tackle the rest of the day’s tasks. The results is I end up feeling more scattered. There’s a fogginess and reluctance to engage at a deeper level. A dysfunctional membrane, one with a higher ratio of push to pull-based sources, increases this reluctance.

When we build tension by limiting our intake of certain modes of information, that tension propels us into activities we enjoy but which may be challenging to begin. When limiting without eliminating we can use what’s withheld as a lure for ourselves, dangling it at the end of challenging days with a promise that yes, we can access more novelty. This is good not only as a cheeky treat but also because a healthy membrane yields new insights, directions, and opportunities. The days I manage to keep my phone off I realize how little I actually missed in the hours spent away. When I do re-engage and see a far-away friend post about an event series in their city, that gets me excited to do something at home. As a result of the excitement I traverse the more local parts of the membrane, reminding friends of events happening here. I navigate the membrane to research and plan new events.

Employing restraint does not only mean limiting one’s intake. It can also take the form of choosing commons-based alternatives. For example, if you value staying informed of global and regional events, choosing reader-funded & reporter-owned news media. It can mean switching up social media use to favor non-commercial interoperable networks, like Mastodon and the wider Fediverse it is part of. We can prioritize information sources where engagement metrics aren’t tracked. Let ourselves adapt to less neon-vibrant but more stable information ecosystems. In the process we are changing what we find palatable.

In this way self-imposed rules are a part of the membrane’s regulation, actively shaping and reshaping it. This seems true on a social level for the relationships we embrace, those we limit, and those we reject. You can experience this systemic regulation in ultrarapid on commercial social media whose applications track all interactions. Where even the briefest pause reveals our attention, the result being the sources behind the pause having its underlying category further promoted for us and for others.

While the membrane grants us power in terms of abstract categories such as ‘reach’ or ‘staying informed’ many of us are lacking in restraint. Some cultures consider the mark of wisdom to exist in the realm of constraints. What we chose not to do. Viewed this way, our wielding of the membrane may grant power, but wielding it without restraint lacks wisdom. I think it is prudent to act with restraint when it comes to the information we take in. We would do well to consider the wide-ranging impact of the information we are exposed to and the consequences it has on our lives. We can make choices that inform what is presented and when and how. We should strive to make those choices with wisdom.