Oct 31

Oct 31 Letters on Social Media #10

A shocked young woman with her laptop open on her knee

Al, I got a follow from someone on Twitter,

who I sort of know in real life, but not that well, and so I went to follow them back, but they’re set to private and I had to request to follow them, and now it’s been three days and they’ve still not accepted my follow request yet I know they’ve been on because they’ve liked one of my posts. What’s with that? Is it some sort of power play? Should I cancel the request? Is that over-reacting? It’s freaking me out. Lx

A young woman lying down, looking at her phone in distress or confusion.

Hey hive-mind.

Is there a way of unhooking my self-worth from Instagram?

A young woman looks crossing at her smartphone, as if thinking of flinging it away

I know that many people accuse others of living in social media “bubbles”,

and I’ve tried very hard to tolerate a range of opinions on my Facebook page so that I hear voices of those whose perspectives differ from my own in order to avoid falling into my natural bubble.

But this is the issue where I draw the line. If you think that a) people (who are able to) shouldn’t have to wear masks; b) this Government is handling the pandemic well; c) it’s fine to ignore the guidance and continue to hang out in your friends’ houses or gardens; d) the virus “isn’t that bad”; e) the current death toll isn’t an indictment of our Government’s greed, cronyism and corruption; f) we shouldn’t rise up and complete the Revolution that was effectively abandoned in 1660, ridding our country of the dangerous elitism that is making all but a tiny proportion suffer terribly; then please, delete me as a friend, and, respectfully, go to hell*.

*not that I believe in any form of organised religion, obviously.

An older man looks at his tablet with some consternation

Hi Mahib,

I know it’s not our session until tomorrow, but I’m freaking out. I was going to delete or avoid all my social media for the duration of the US election, but now that we’re going back into a second lockdown, I feel like I’m going to be trapped in a room with it and there’s no escape. I know that’s ridiculous because nothing has actually changed in terms of my personal circumstances, but I can just feel the way that life is being moved online and if I cut myself off from those platforms, I effectively cut myself off from the entire world. I know that’s not the case (it’s not like someone’s a hermit or luddite or spiritual nomad or something just because they aren’t on social media), but I can’t disentangle the idea that I won’t really exist right now if I don’t have a profile on these platforms, and I was wondering if you could reframe this for me, somehow? Thanks, Ad

A man looks at his tablet with a sort of smug expression

So I was just wondering,

what would it be like if when the next big lockdown starts we all had an hour’s break or whatever without posting? Wouldn’t that be nice? Maybe it should be a day or something, or even a week. Imagine: no pressure, sharing thoughts with close friends instead of random acquaintances you’ve never actually met in real life, perhaps actually speaking to people one on one on the phone or by video chat, just on a whim. Don’t you think that sounds like bliss? Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll set up a group to organise it and if we can keep sharing it to get as many people on board as possible, that would be great.

Letters on Social Media is a humorous series of fictional letters that aims to explore some of the ways our fragile human minds are ill-equipped to cope with the world of digital communication.

Plans are afoot to turn Letters on Social Media into a micro-podcast. If you would like to record yourself reading one of the letters, I’d be delighted. Just get in touch via the Contact page or via my social media, and I’ll let you know which letters are available.

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