Using RSS Feeds to make your life better
So many updates
The internet is massive, full of massive sites, many of which post regular updates that you might want to check in on periodically. For instance, I follow a number of writers, including Cory Doctorow. I also like to get daily lists of newly published academic articles in Computer Science so I can read one or two every day. In addition to that, I like to be well informed, so I read the news most days. As I'm settling more into blogging and reading regularly, I can predict I'll pick up a few more writers I'll want to follow in the near future.
In order to check for updates on each of these sources, I would need to bookmark each page where updates can be found, then navigate to that page every single day, and tab through, checking if the most recent posting is something I've seen before or not (there's not always new content). Then repeat this process for each tab. It would also take quite a while to load all of these tabs, and might slow down my computer if I have a lot of them. And this all assumes you have the initiative to save these different sites into clean bookmarks all by your self.
Using RSS instead
Instead of all that, I recommend using an aggregator. More specifically, use some kind of RSS feed reader. There is no single app that is RSS, think of it more like a type of app. Kind of like there is no single web browser app, you also don't have any single RSS reader, there's many to choose from and they all accomplish the same base task, delivering RSS feeds to you when you check in on it. As a result, this also means that essentially any device that you have, you will be able to download an RSS reader onto it.
What is an RSS Reader?
RSS Readers allow you to simply copy a special link that websites often have available, paste it into the app, and then it will be able to check for any new updates from the site much quicker than having to load up the page yourself. And it can do it for ALL of the sites you want to keep tabs on. So if you're following 5 different writers, 6 categories of academic papers, and 8 social media accounts on Bluesky, Mastadon, Reddit, or YouTube, then you'll get all those updates put together into a categorized report, which you can click any interesting posts and be taken to the webpage for that item. And it allows you to skim through and ignore all the posts you're not interested in without wasting your time.
Notice how I included social media in the list? That's right, you can also follow people's social media feeds with this tool. It's really useful because it allows you to check up on certain accounts, without all the risks of getting distracted like when you open their dedicated app/website. Unfortunately, not all sites provide RSS links for you. Instagram and Twitter both do not provide them, but most other sites will: Blogs, forums, news sites, activist organization pages, even some corporate websites. They're useful because they allow users to check up on new stuff without needing to go to a specific location for each new thing they want to follow. Since everything is already in one place, it's not much work to add another feed to your RSS Reader.
I've got an RSS Feed!
A lot of you probably don't care to follow my blog. I talk about technical stuff in the field of Computer Science, Computer-Human Interaction, and Social Networks. That might be your thing or it might not. But if it is, I kindly refer you to notice the big link at the top of my blog titled "RSS". If you like, you can copy and paste this link into your RSS Reader, and then you could get updates from my blog. But really you don't have to. I more less just pointed this out as an example of the fact that just about everyone has it. I didn't program RSS into this blog, Bear Blog just includes it as base functionality for anyone who runs a blog on here. Almost every other blog does the same thing too. RSS Feeds are everywhere, and they make your life so much easier if you want to really get into reading periodic updates from many sources. They're a part of the web 1.0's infrastructure. They're really amazing.
So to clarify, only follow my blog if you want to, and if you run your own blog, I recommend you post your RSS link publicly somewhere for followers to see. I also recommend using RSS to follow some of the social media accounts you already follow, but through the feed reader, so you can quickly separate important from unimportant updates, and without getting distracted by other things also going on on the platform.