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Taking a break from social media: how many virtual hugs equal a real one? Taking a break from social media: how many virtual hugs equal a real one?
(35 minutes later)
Facebook, as the saying goes, is where people lie to their friends; Twitter is where people tell the truth to strangers. I went off both on Friday 13th to test the theory recently posited by a group of Danish researchers that social media makes you unhappy. One of the reasons is that people varnish their lives, which makes your own look tatty and careworn, but this has never been a problem for me. All my Facebook friends are counter-cultural, so nothing good ever happens to any of them. It’s just a long list of failure, the odd birth, and rage at the outrageous bias of the rightwing media. I can do that in my head. I missed Twitter immediately though, watching a Harry Potter film, noticing that Voldemort looked like Yanis Varoufakis. Neither of my dozy children knows who Varoufakis is. I felt like the tree falling over in the philosophy-for-beginners forest.Facebook, as the saying goes, is where people lie to their friends; Twitter is where people tell the truth to strangers. I went off both on Friday 13th to test the theory recently posited by a group of Danish researchers that social media makes you unhappy. One of the reasons is that people varnish their lives, which makes your own look tatty and careworn, but this has never been a problem for me. All my Facebook friends are counter-cultural, so nothing good ever happens to any of them. It’s just a long list of failure, the odd birth, and rage at the outrageous bias of the rightwing media. I can do that in my head. I missed Twitter immediately though, watching a Harry Potter film, noticing that Voldemort looked like Yanis Varoufakis. Neither of my dozy children knows who Varoufakis is. I felt like the tree falling over in the philosophy-for-beginners forest.
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“Instead of silence or helpfulness, social media pukes out stupidity,” the tech entrepreneur Rurik Bradbury told the Washington Post the morning after the attacks on Paris. He noted the “vicarious ‘enjoyment’ (in a psychoanalytic sense) of a terrible tragedy by people thousands of miles away, for whom the event is just a meme they will participate in for a couple of days, then let fade into their timeline.” How useful is social media in the wake of a shocking event, and for whom? How trustworthy is it, how much is ghoulish, and what, exactly, is that unease of watching public figures, the world over, declaim the depth of their sympathy for strangers, to other strangers? It’s like a narcissistic scrum. For anyone at a distance, Twitter and Facebook are the two last things you need after a major tragedy.“Instead of silence or helpfulness, social media pukes out stupidity,” the tech entrepreneur Rurik Bradbury told the Washington Post the morning after the attacks on Paris. He noted the “vicarious ‘enjoyment’ (in a psychoanalytic sense) of a terrible tragedy by people thousands of miles away, for whom the event is just a meme they will participate in for a couple of days, then let fade into their timeline.” How useful is social media in the wake of a shocking event, and for whom? How trustworthy is it, how much is ghoulish, and what, exactly, is that unease of watching public figures, the world over, declaim the depth of their sympathy for strangers, to other strangers? It’s like a narcissistic scrum. For anyone at a distance, Twitter and Facebook are the two last things you need after a major tragedy.
In the ensuing days, however, people started to be wrong on the internet. Niall Ferguson opined that Paris, like ancient Rome, had been killed by complacency (the logic being that “as its wealth has grown, so its military prowess has shrunk, along with its self-belief”, the fount of self-belief here being the ability to keep an eye out for other people with self-belief, and pre-emptively kill them).In the ensuing days, however, people started to be wrong on the internet. Niall Ferguson opined that Paris, like ancient Rome, had been killed by complacency (the logic being that “as its wealth has grown, so its military prowess has shrunk, along with its self-belief”, the fount of self-belief here being the ability to keep an eye out for other people with self-belief, and pre-emptively kill them).
A beautician in Bicester issued a notice (I read it on Yahoo News, which is like an aggregation of the stupidest things that happen on Facebook) saying that she refused to book any Muslim or Islamic client. “Pranksters began leaving joke reviews on the Facebook page, mocking her offensive stance,” ran the tantalising news story. This is when you need social media: when you want to join a hate mob. Nothing else will do; without it, you just have to let your hatred go.A beautician in Bicester issued a notice (I read it on Yahoo News, which is like an aggregation of the stupidest things that happen on Facebook) saying that she refused to book any Muslim or Islamic client. “Pranksters began leaving joke reviews on the Facebook page, mocking her offensive stance,” ran the tantalising news story. This is when you need social media: when you want to join a hate mob. Nothing else will do; without it, you just have to let your hatred go.
The writer Nicholas Carr said that before the internet he would approach a subject like a deep sea diver, and afterwards like a jet skier, skimming over the top of everything. Had I been on Twitter, I would have read half of about 20 articles on Isis, bookmarks strewn about my desktop like it’d been ransacked. There’s nothing to stop me reading articles, of course, except that nobody on social media has shouted at me to READ THIS. Instead I read Patrick Cockburn’s book, The Rise of Islamic State, and I remembered why books fell out of fashion, because things in them are complicated, and differences are subtle but important, and situations arise through the meticulously plotted confluence of other situations, and nothing is as simple as the decline and fall of the Roman empire, not even the decline and fall of the Roman empire.The writer Nicholas Carr said that before the internet he would approach a subject like a deep sea diver, and afterwards like a jet skier, skimming over the top of everything. Had I been on Twitter, I would have read half of about 20 articles on Isis, bookmarks strewn about my desktop like it’d been ransacked. There’s nothing to stop me reading articles, of course, except that nobody on social media has shouted at me to READ THIS. Instead I read Patrick Cockburn’s book, The Rise of Islamic State, and I remembered why books fell out of fashion, because things in them are complicated, and differences are subtle but important, and situations arise through the meticulously plotted confluence of other situations, and nothing is as simple as the decline and fall of the Roman empire, not even the decline and fall of the Roman empire.
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On Monday it transpired that my dog had a brain tumour. In normal life I would have gone on Facebook to deliver that, simply, in one go, and then on to Twitter to say: why don’t vets just tell you when your dog first has a seizure that it’s most probably a brain tumour, instead of ruling out a whole host of much less likely scenarios and leaving you to figure out the likely one using nothing but your evidence-gathering skills and the internet? On Facebook lots of people who knew him would have said they were sorry, which would have made me feel better, and on Twitter a load of vets would have said: actually, plenty of dogs have seizures for no reason and live perfectly healthy lives. Which would have made me feel worse.On Monday it transpired that my dog had a brain tumour. In normal life I would have gone on Facebook to deliver that, simply, in one go, and then on to Twitter to say: why don’t vets just tell you when your dog first has a seizure that it’s most probably a brain tumour, instead of ruling out a whole host of much less likely scenarios and leaving you to figure out the likely one using nothing but your evidence-gathering skills and the internet? On Facebook lots of people who knew him would have said they were sorry, which would have made me feel better, and on Twitter a load of vets would have said: actually, plenty of dogs have seizures for no reason and live perfectly healthy lives. Which would have made me feel worse.
Instead, I stood crying on the street, and a stranger had to give me a hug. How many virtual hugs would it take to equal one meat hug? My instinct says an infinite amount, but someone at Maryland University has probably measured the oxytocin release and come up with an actual ratio. I bet it’s something really unremarkable, like 17.Instead, I stood crying on the street, and a stranger had to give me a hug. How many virtual hugs would it take to equal one meat hug? My instinct says an infinite amount, but someone at Maryland University has probably measured the oxytocin release and come up with an actual ratio. I bet it’s something really unremarkable, like 17.
It’s a bit like the derivatives market, social media: engrossing, totally unproductive, and not related to real life in any way, unless something goes horribly wrong. The Bicester beautician was arrested and released on bail. I was no happier but I had more time. Niall Ferguson remains at large.It’s a bit like the derivatives market, social media: engrossing, totally unproductive, and not related to real life in any way, unless something goes horribly wrong. The Bicester beautician was arrested and released on bail. I was no happier but I had more time. Niall Ferguson remains at large.