In 2026, the internet is, to put it lightly, insufferable.
Some people have completely deleted social media to save their attention span from the deluge of artificial intelligence (AI) slop. Others are turning to phone-free activities to reclaim their relationships.
But unlike those who advocate going offline, I've never quite believed reducing my screen time was the long-term answer.
What I wanted, instead, was the "old" internet back.
In search of the internet I missed, where earnestness was embraced rather than seen as cringe, I started spending more time reading Substack newsletters, watching YouTube video essays, and curating Pinterest boards.
Those were spaces that, at least for now, encouraged my creativity and curiosity that the internet's current iteration seemed to have stolen.
It was the lattermost that I found unexpectedly helpful in bridging the gap between the convenience of digital media and the intentionality of analogue media.
Unlike algorithmically-charged social media platforms, Pinterest had always felt, to me, like a slower corner of the web where I could linger without constantly being prodded to react or interact.
Pinterest Predicts 2026 sets the stage for trends it believes will emerge. (Image: Pinterest)
Using the visual search engine was my digital equivalent of wandering through supermarket aisles in my spare time. The niche hobby has been likened to harmless escapism, allowing individuals to daydream about aspirational selves influenced by everyday products.
Pinterest seemed to lack the addictive drip feed of dopamine in big tech, like TikTok and Instagram, and never quite took off with the same traction.
Returning to it in 2025 revealed an online experience I hadn’t realised I was nostalgic for, where spending hours scrolling left me inspired, not drained.
And until a recent trend took off, I hadn’t realised a generation of digital natives was also collectively mourning this version of the internet it seems we might never return to.
Since mid-January, the viral 2016 trend has seen social media users share classic #throwbacks to life online a decade ago, such as flower-crown Snapchat filters and flatlays of brunch food.
The trend appears to be an ode to a simpler time, when people posted online for the sheer fun of making memories.
But for those of us who were less inclined to share personally, being a passive social media user was a lesson in curating for personal interests, much like journalling, rather than to create a public persona.
In its nascent stages, social media helped me discover what I liked, from music to fashion and TV to movies, and consequently, who I wanted to be.
And this self-discovery is apparently the reason Gen Zs have taken to Pinterest too.
In simpler times, we used to post mundane updates of our daily life on social media. (Photo: iStock/GaudiLab)
Gen Z is Pinterest’s fastest growing demographic, contributing more than 50 per cent of its monthly active users, Ayumi Nakajima, the brand’s senior director of content partnerships for Asia Pacific, told CNA Lifestyle.
The “most prominent” trait about Gen Z users, she added, is that they are “much more deliberate and intent-driven” compared with other demographics.
But their "intentions" differ from, say, the average millennial user’s focus on a tangible end goal.
“Gen Z are very comfortable with this journey of self-discovery, self-expression and curation. They may not have a specific project in mind but they browse through Pinterest, trying to figure out their style or aesthetic,” said Nakajima.
“It’s a pleasant joyful experience of being able to explore interests in a personalised way, like no one’s watching over you. You don’t feel judged or criticised for the things you curate.”
For this reason, undergraduate Britney Lim has seen Pinterest as a “safe place to get inspiration” since 2013, when she was 10 years old. The platform kept her returning, thanks to its “calm, predictable and reliable vibe”.
One of Britney Lim's Pinterest boards. (Screengrab: Britney Lim)
The Gen Z digital native and her friends use it to find nail art inspiration, phone wallpapers and Instagram Story templates, she said, but “definitely not in the social way” they use standard social media apps.
The user experience is not “overly stimulating”, like when algorithmically-charged short-form videos often derail the best intentions to scroll mindfully.
As a One Direction fan, Lim also found Pinterest a “good place” to get pictures of the band back in the day “because they were mainly posted by fangirls themselves who knew exactly what other fans wanted, compared with Google which would have horrendous Getty images”.
She likened it to her experience on microblogging platform Tumblr and visual bookmarking service We Heart It around the early 2010s – places she could simply take her time to discover her tastes.
Image consultant Annabelle Siena Lim said she uses Pinterest in a similar way to help her clients with their professional image and executive presence.
The 28-year-old founder of Belgrace Institute puts together personalised boards of outfits for clients, from new mums to C-suite professionals hoping to rediscover their style. These boards are especially useful in colour analysis.
Some of image consultant Annabelle Siena Lim's Pinterest boards, which she shows clients to help them visualise their style. (Screengrabs: Annabelle Siena Lim)
“Colour is always easier to see than explain. If I have someone trying to revamp their wardrobe, for example, and she’s a soft autumn, I’ll show her (a Pinterest board) or celebrities in her colour season and she’ll get it,” she said.
“For my work, it’s a very visual business, but there’s a lot of stuff underneath it to do with confidence and etiquette.”
Looking at images ultimately helps people immediately visualise who they want to be, and gauge whether it aligns with their values too.
Likewise, Pinterest’s Nakajima highlighted the importance of learning to pull together different visual images over time as a way to document one’s evolving style and even identity.
The practice encourages the process of self-discovery, perhaps all the more pertinent in youth.
“It’s a personal, private space, where you’re not comparing yourself against others,” she said.
Finding platforms that encourage curation of visual moodboards is a good way to get inspired. (Photo: iStock/Erdark)
To be clear, such use of social media is nothing new, with digital detoxes on the rise as a supposedly restorative antidote to increasing “enshittification”.
The term was coined by Canadian-British journalist and science fiction author Cory Doctorow to describe the gradual deterioration in an online platform’s service quality due to profit-seeking.
But the intentional search for an alternative to a post-pandemic internet feels more pronounced among Gen Z, who have turned to day clubbing and sober-curious drinking in a bid to lead more conscious lifestyles.
“In that respect, we can assume that they don’t want to get sucked into the vortex of social media algorithms too, and as a result, they are looking at alternatives,” pointed out Vivek Iyyani, founder of Millennial Minds, a marketing agency focused on the younger generation.
After all, "culturally speaking", it is probably impossible to completely eliminate social media, he noted, and that shouldn’t be the goal either.
“Maybe (we) just (need) a different type of interaction where we can feel better about ourselves while scrolling.”
Of course, no platform is perfect if we define perfection as the fun we had on the internet in the 2010s. But maybe the "old" internet was simply about intent: logging on to explore, collect, linger.
To me, finding alternatives to social media that's optimised for outrage isn't about resurrecting a lost era so much as it's a reminder to ourselves that the internet can still be used gently and with purpose.
And choosing how (and where) we scroll may be the closest thing we have to taking that internet back.
Continue reading...
Some people have completely deleted social media to save their attention span from the deluge of artificial intelligence (AI) slop. Others are turning to phone-free activities to reclaim their relationships.
But unlike those who advocate going offline, I've never quite believed reducing my screen time was the long-term answer.
What I wanted, instead, was the "old" internet back.
In search of the internet I missed, where earnestness was embraced rather than seen as cringe, I started spending more time reading Substack newsletters, watching YouTube video essays, and curating Pinterest boards.
Those were spaces that, at least for now, encouraged my creativity and curiosity that the internet's current iteration seemed to have stolen.
It was the lattermost that I found unexpectedly helpful in bridging the gap between the convenience of digital media and the intentionality of analogue media.
Unlike algorithmically-charged social media platforms, Pinterest had always felt, to me, like a slower corner of the web where I could linger without constantly being prodded to react or interact.
Pinterest Predicts 2026 sets the stage for trends it believes will emerge. (Image: Pinterest)
Using the visual search engine was my digital equivalent of wandering through supermarket aisles in my spare time. The niche hobby has been likened to harmless escapism, allowing individuals to daydream about aspirational selves influenced by everyday products.
Pinterest seemed to lack the addictive drip feed of dopamine in big tech, like TikTok and Instagram, and never quite took off with the same traction.
Returning to it in 2025 revealed an online experience I hadn’t realised I was nostalgic for, where spending hours scrolling left me inspired, not drained.
And until a recent trend took off, I hadn’t realised a generation of digital natives was also collectively mourning this version of the internet it seems we might never return to.
Since mid-January, the viral 2016 trend has seen social media users share classic #throwbacks to life online a decade ago, such as flower-crown Snapchat filters and flatlays of brunch food.
The trend appears to be an ode to a simpler time, when people posted online for the sheer fun of making memories.
But for those of us who were less inclined to share personally, being a passive social media user was a lesson in curating for personal interests, much like journalling, rather than to create a public persona.
In its nascent stages, social media helped me discover what I liked, from music to fashion and TV to movies, and consequently, who I wanted to be.
And this self-discovery is apparently the reason Gen Zs have taken to Pinterest too.
In simpler times, we used to post mundane updates of our daily life on social media. (Photo: iStock/GaudiLab)
INTENTIONAL SELF-DISCOVERY
Gen Z is Pinterest’s fastest growing demographic, contributing more than 50 per cent of its monthly active users, Ayumi Nakajima, the brand’s senior director of content partnerships for Asia Pacific, told CNA Lifestyle.
The “most prominent” trait about Gen Z users, she added, is that they are “much more deliberate and intent-driven” compared with other demographics.
But their "intentions" differ from, say, the average millennial user’s focus on a tangible end goal.
“Gen Z are very comfortable with this journey of self-discovery, self-expression and curation. They may not have a specific project in mind but they browse through Pinterest, trying to figure out their style or aesthetic,” said Nakajima.
“It’s a pleasant joyful experience of being able to explore interests in a personalised way, like no one’s watching over you. You don’t feel judged or criticised for the things you curate.”
For this reason, undergraduate Britney Lim has seen Pinterest as a “safe place to get inspiration” since 2013, when she was 10 years old. The platform kept her returning, thanks to its “calm, predictable and reliable vibe”.
One of Britney Lim's Pinterest boards. (Screengrab: Britney Lim)
The Gen Z digital native and her friends use it to find nail art inspiration, phone wallpapers and Instagram Story templates, she said, but “definitely not in the social way” they use standard social media apps.
The user experience is not “overly stimulating”, like when algorithmically-charged short-form videos often derail the best intentions to scroll mindfully.
As a One Direction fan, Lim also found Pinterest a “good place” to get pictures of the band back in the day “because they were mainly posted by fangirls themselves who knew exactly what other fans wanted, compared with Google which would have horrendous Getty images”.
She likened it to her experience on microblogging platform Tumblr and visual bookmarking service We Heart It around the early 2010s – places she could simply take her time to discover her tastes.
Image consultant Annabelle Siena Lim said she uses Pinterest in a similar way to help her clients with their professional image and executive presence.
The 28-year-old founder of Belgrace Institute puts together personalised boards of outfits for clients, from new mums to C-suite professionals hoping to rediscover their style. These boards are especially useful in colour analysis.
Some of image consultant Annabelle Siena Lim's Pinterest boards, which she shows clients to help them visualise their style. (Screengrabs: Annabelle Siena Lim)
“Colour is always easier to see than explain. If I have someone trying to revamp their wardrobe, for example, and she’s a soft autumn, I’ll show her (a Pinterest board) or celebrities in her colour season and she’ll get it,” she said.
“For my work, it’s a very visual business, but there’s a lot of stuff underneath it to do with confidence and etiquette.”
Looking at images ultimately helps people immediately visualise who they want to be, and gauge whether it aligns with their values too.
Likewise, Pinterest’s Nakajima highlighted the importance of learning to pull together different visual images over time as a way to document one’s evolving style and even identity.
The practice encourages the process of self-discovery, perhaps all the more pertinent in youth.
“It’s a personal, private space, where you’re not comparing yourself against others,” she said.
Finding platforms that encourage curation of visual moodboards is a good way to get inspired. (Photo: iStock/Erdark)
To be clear, such use of social media is nothing new, with digital detoxes on the rise as a supposedly restorative antidote to increasing “enshittification”.
The term was coined by Canadian-British journalist and science fiction author Cory Doctorow to describe the gradual deterioration in an online platform’s service quality due to profit-seeking.
But the intentional search for an alternative to a post-pandemic internet feels more pronounced among Gen Z, who have turned to day clubbing and sober-curious drinking in a bid to lead more conscious lifestyles.
“In that respect, we can assume that they don’t want to get sucked into the vortex of social media algorithms too, and as a result, they are looking at alternatives,” pointed out Vivek Iyyani, founder of Millennial Minds, a marketing agency focused on the younger generation.
After all, "culturally speaking", it is probably impossible to completely eliminate social media, he noted, and that shouldn’t be the goal either.
“Maybe (we) just (need) a different type of interaction where we can feel better about ourselves while scrolling.”
Of course, no platform is perfect if we define perfection as the fun we had on the internet in the 2010s. But maybe the "old" internet was simply about intent: logging on to explore, collect, linger.
To me, finding alternatives to social media that's optimised for outrage isn't about resurrecting a lost era so much as it's a reminder to ourselves that the internet can still be used gently and with purpose.
And choosing how (and where) we scroll may be the closest thing we have to taking that internet back.
Continue reading...