A letter from Mar 11, 2024

Hello Future Flick, It's mad how not having social media really restricts how much you are exposed to. If you want to know more, you have to seek it out. Your knowledge may be more select, but at least you know you were interested in what you know. Having social media is a bit like falling in a cement mixer full of porridge. You don’t know how you got here and you know that everything here is kind of wrong. Today a news story broke about the Princess of Wales. She had an unspecified abdominal surgery carried out in January, and her first appearance since then was in a photo of her with her three children for Mother's Day. Media outlets had wiped the photo as it looked like it was edited, and nobody wanted to be seen as even partially responsible for posting a doctored photo of a senior royal - especially not one currently shrouded in mystery. Without social media, I first heard this information on the radio after I'd had my morning coffee and breakfast, and sat down at my desk. I then decided to take a look at the photo myself. I saw it once, formed my own opinion based on the information I had, and then I moved on. I would then later hear the statement from the Princess that she, like many amateur photographers, likes to play around with editing her photos. This provoked a few more minutes of thought, and then once more, I moved on... the phone probably started ringing, or my boss may have asked me a question. Had I kept my social media accounts, I would have woken up and scrolled through Instagram before 7am. I would have inevitably come across the photo within minutes, and then I would have found it posted again, and again, and again. People such as '@mikeyboi67' and '@WitchInAUniform149'* would no doubt have something to say on the matter. I would have access to potentially hundreds of thousands of comments on a relatively small story, all ranging from 'Leave her alone, it's her private business' to 'BURN HER FOR HER SECRETS, DOWN WITH THE MONARCHY!!!' all before 8am and the image itself would be burned into my retinas. Then I'd hear about the statement from the Princess, over and over, again and again, and people would have far more than they ought to say about it. Something that took up ten minutes of my time and interest without social media has now taken hours because the algorithm is convinced this is what I want to see today. Whether it’s because I’m a millennial female, or British, or both, it would throw every version of the post the site has my way because it MUST be what I want to read about today. But what difference would it truly make to my life? I still had to get up at 5.45am and go to work to ensure my bills are paid. I sat down at my desk for 8 hours, occasionally stopping to text my partner or eat or drink a glass of water, and then drove home again. The only impact it really has is whether or not I've had information overload by 8am. I tried to explain to a friend about my decision to delete social media. She couldn't believe it. "Girl, why?" followed by a laughing emoji with tears in it's eyes. Immediately I felt shamed. Not directly her fault, but it seems to be everyone's reaction. There is something wrong with you if you are not on social media. I remember at 18, my friends and I would all agree that if a guy doesn’t have social media it was a Big. Red. Flag. I cringe looking back now. I tried to explain that it feels bad for me, for my mental health. It's exhausting to be bombarded with images of beautiful men and women with far more money than I, showing off their abs, or travelling the world, or getting married at 24 while I am an unmarried 29 year old with a 9 to 5 who drags herself to the gym when she has the energy. It doesn't matter that I'm not ready to be married, or that, all things considered I’m pretty fortunate and that in reality I live a pretty similar life to those around me. I see all this and feel inadequate. And I don't need to. I could also be doing something so much more valuable with my time. We spend hours scrolling through this.... stuff... that's not even meaningful, and to really call it 'entertainment' would be a stretch. I told her I could be reading a book, or learning something new, or even just paying attention to the show I'm watching on Netflix rather than dividing my attention between the TV and a Tik Tok of a ballerina dressed up like Voldemort. It's not that I don't enjoy the Tik Tok, but it's not the best use of my time, is it? It’s not even that the content I consume has to be high- brow. I listen to a podcast by middle aged men complaining about movies they didn’t like. My favourite thing in the world is the Eurovision Song Contest. But these things are created for me to enjoy them. They are not an app with a format designed to keep me engaged for as long as possible by throwing so many things my way I keep scrolling in the hopes that I stay to see if another video of a dog singing pops up. It may do, it may not. That’s the algorithm, baby. Social media doesn’t care if I enjoy myself, it just wants me there. In response she joked if I hadn't become fluent in another language in a month’s time, I had wasted my time deleting my apps. But I don't think so. Even if I've learned nothing new, the peace I feel in my own brain is... well, it's peaceful. And I hope I never feel the need to download social media again. * apologies if these usernames are real or especially if they are you, this is not targeted at anyone, I merely plucked them out of thin air as a made-up username in my brain!