Social media’s a trap, but I can’t bear to get out
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Version 0 of 1. Joseph Cannataci, the new UN privacy chief, certainly lives up to his job title. Apparently people have been trying to find him on Twitter and Facebook. “Since I believe in privacy, I’ve never felt the need for it,” he said, while talking about social media this week. Quite. It would hardly be appropriate were Cannataci to be in possession of an online account consisting of pouting bathroom “belfies” and uploads of his morning #avotoast. How unbecoming it would be to see from a man in his line of work uploading passive-aggressive status updates bemoaning that “someONE is rly getting me down atm. Not sayin’ who but u kno who u are #bitch”. How I envy Cannataci for his social media restraint. Increasingly, the technologically equipped world appears to be divided largely into two categories of people: those who are all over social media like the rash they just uploaded a photo of to Twitter, and those who choose not to use it. Then there’s the third, smaller category, to which I belong – the reluctant users, who signed up at the beginning with guileless enthusiasm and now bitterly regret that decision, wishing we belonged to the infinitely cooler (and probably happier) group of people who never bothered at all. I’ve run out of social media steam. Other things, like sleep, have become more important I was thinking this the other weekend, when I logged in and realised that everyone on Facebook had not only got married but had uploaded documentary evidence to prove it. Why did I bother? There are only so many nuptials hosted by people I met in a bar in Italy once in 2009 to which I can bear witness, just as there are only so many lampshade dresses I can mentally bad-mouth. And don’t even get me started on Twitter, which I feel obliged to have because of my career but secretly loathe with a passion, populated as it is by people who are so convinced of their own rightness that they attempt to question your very existence; men who explain things to me; and media cliques I don’t belong to. It makes me paranoid, it feels like screaming into an abyss, and most of my friends don’t have it. Meanwhile, my unfinished novel lies neglected in a .doc file; a testament to the creativity-sapping forces of internet procrastination (not that there’s any point deleting Twitter if you want to publish a book, because publishers will inevitably ask: “why don’t you have Twitter?” and you’ll have to get it again to promote the thing). I know I’m not the only one with social media fatigue. It seems to be common amongst my age group – the “bridge” generation who came of age as the internet was taking off but can just about remember what life was like before it. Initially we did everything out in the open on Facebook – explicit conversations about what happened last night that anyone could eavesdrop on. Now, people only post major life events, and I only ever log on to check my messages or tell someone that their baby is nice. I use it even less than my dad, who is 57 and only ever seems to use his Facebook to post links to his profile about how poor Facebook’s privacy settings are. My Facebook is essentially a memorial to my early 20s: photos of me with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of alcohol in the other, veiled historic references to the morning-after pill, and the odd one-night stand in my friends list. I’m not the only one who has left their profile to stagnate as they matured: my friend Jacob has had his employment listed as “handyman at your mum’s house” for almost a decade now. Related: Digital surveillance 'worse than Orwell', says new UN privacy chief I’m not saying that Facebook is “over” (though it all seems to be about Instagram now, which I believe was set up as a vehicle for rich people who are so malnourished from juice fasts that are no longer capable of lifting their wrists to type), more that I’ve run out of social media steam. Other things, like sleep, have become more important. Sometimes it takes five days for me to reply to a message, and I don’t even care. “But if it annoys you so much, why not just delete it?” you might ask. The problem is, I’m in too deep. There are years’ worth of contact details in there. This is the social media trap – I care about enough of the people on it to keep it going, however much I hate the thing itself. I want to see their weddings and their babies and their travels. If that means having to see their breakfasts and their wedding dances and their terrible opinions as well, so be it. But I can’t help but envy those who never bought into it. Somehow, all those things social media addicts fear about deactivation – still getting invited to parties, continuing to have friends – aren’t ever a problem for those who never had it in the first place. Even more disturbing is the thought that those people for whom social media doesn’t sit well – those members of my generation who felt they had enough presence of mind and sense of self to opt out – are themselves now becoming a thing of the past. |