Three internet habits worth keeping in 2026
A short list of small, low-effort habits that quietly improve the shape of your online life.
Here are three habits worth keeping if you want a calmer, more interesting internet.
1. Bookmark instead of follow. Following puts a writer or maker into your feed, where the algorithm decides whether you actually see them. Bookmarking puts them in a list you control. Once a week, scroll your bookmarks. You'll be surprised how much better the hit rate is than your feed.
2. Set aside a "weird tab" hour. Once a week, give yourself an hour to click around on the small web. Random buttons, indie directories, friends' personal sites, whatever. No goal. No notes. Just wandering. It pays off in unexpected ways for the rest of your week.
3. Pay one creator a few dollars a month. Pick someone whose work you actually use. A newsletter, a podcast, a tiny tool. Pay them. The dollar amount almost doesn't matter. What matters is the structural shape: a tiny number of paying readers is what keeps independent work alive.
None of these are huge. All of them compound. The internet doesn't change because of big gestures. It changes because a few people change their defaults.