Pocket worthyStories to fuel your mind

My Joy List: Ina Fried

Journalist Ina Fried has brought a surge of much needed joy to the internet with her #letters4transkids campaign. Here, she shares the sites that bring joy into her own online life.

Pocket Collections

Read when you’ve got time to spare.

It’s been a rough time in the world, so I’ve actually been compiling my Joy List pretty actively the last couple of years. I’ve learned to pay attention to my mood and notice when I am getting stressed and try to shift from generic “doomscrolling” (a term that my friend and fellow journalist Karen Ho coined) to something more intentional.

I’ve also learned to add feeds to my social networks that just bring me happiness. This ensures that when I am scrolling through Twitter or Facebook, I have pictures of cute animals or clever Lego builds mixed in with posts about Covid and anti-trans legislation and war. The great thing about adding these to the list of accounts you follow is that you don’t have to do all the work when you are at a low point. Sometimes things that bring joy just pop up.

So here’s my list. These are things that work for me, but I highly encourage you to come up with your own list and figure out how to intentionally inject joy into your daily internet use. –Ina Fried

An Alternative to Doomscrolling (Thread)

IF: “This is one of my alternatives to the aforementioned doomscrolling. As I am reading through my Facebook or Twitter feed, instead of focusing on the things that stress me out, I read with the intention of seeing who out there looks like they could use some support after a hard day or acknowledgement after accomplishing something. And then I do it, sometimes in a public note or response, sometimes in a private message or text, whatever feels right. So, I call that #lovescrolling.”

#Letters4TransKids Sends Messages of Encouragement and Love to Trans Youth

IF: “So this is another project I started to give joy, though it also brings me joy as well. It’s a social media campaign designed to send some love to trans and nonbinary youth at a time when there is so much hate being sent their way. Taking part is easy, you just post a letter—or a short video, or a picture of a handwritten note—to any social media using the hashtag #letters4transkids. (You can also email lettersfortranskids@gmail.com). This article in Xtra Magazine tells more about the amazing response and some of the cool folks taking part.”

Ina Fried

Ina Fried is chief technology correspondent for Axios and author of its daily tech newsletter Login. She was also a frequent contributor to Axios on HBO, interviewing some of the most influential people in science and technology.

Before joining Axios in 2017, she was a senior editor at Recode, covering mobile, and produced the Code/Mobile series of conferences.

Fried previously covered mobile at All Things Digital and spent a decade at CNET covering, among other things, Microsoft and Apple.

Her reporting has spanned several continents, two genders, and included chronicling the Hewlett Packard-Compaq merger, Bill Gates’s transition from software giant to philanthropist, and the 2010 Winter Olympics. A former national board member for NLGJA: The LGBT Journalists Association, she’s a member of the LBGT Journalists Hall of Fame.