In my ongoing quest to better manage (i.e. restrict) my media consumption, I've made some changes to my RSS setup.
I noticed that, broadly, the types of feed I subscribe to fall into one these categories:
(Yeah, my appetite for tech focused content outside of work is currently near zero...)
What I've noticed is that I'm frequently in the mood for category #1, and that these are the kinds of feeds that I find fun, relaxing, or calming. These days, I am less frequently in the mood for #2 and #3, and I try and limit how frequently I'm checking these feeds (ideally every few days at most).
To keep access to the personal blogs easy, but to quarantine the other feed types a bit, I decided to segment them by RSS app (note: I do most of my feed reading on iOS, so that's the context for this setup).
For personal blogs, I use the Current RSS reader. It's a beautiful, thoughtful, and calming application that lends itself really well to reading indieweb feeds. It has a pretty neat feature that allows a feed item to be displayed using the native style of the blog it comes from. This isn't something that I enable with every feed, but for sites that provide articles in even a semi-readable style, this can help prevent the aesthetic "flattening" that at times feels like one of the pitfalls of RSS. This app is easily worth the $10 asking price, and I am more than happy to pay for software that demonstrates this level of craftsmanship. I've used Current for about a month and a half now, and it's probably one of my favorite applications. I keep this right on my dock (home bar) and use it every day.
For political or tech adjacent content, I use NetNewsWire (NNW). NNW is a great application, and I've enjoyed it for years. Its design is a little bit more utilitarian, so I think it's a natural fit for the kind of feeds that I'm interested in for the articles and not the aesthetics. To help me pay a little bit less attention to this kind of content, I hid the app on my home screen. That means that I can still access it by searching or by finding it in my app library, but it creates a little bit of extra friction that makes me not think to check it as frequently as I would otherwise do.
So far I am quite happy with this change, and the results are meeting my expectations. I'm able to see the chill blog feeds without the unwelcome intrusion of politics or tech, but I can still access that stuff in a dedicated space with a little more focused effort.
~nullish
https://www.currentreader.app/
https://netnewswire.com/
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