The Social Network

Facebook is dead, Twitter's a bin fire, but social media still has its uses, writes Olly Mann

- Olly Mann

Do you remember when social media felt good? When Friends Reunited connected you back to your high school sweetheart… Or when you posted a song to MySpace, a giddy thrill akin to decorating your teenage bedroom… Or when Instagram filters miraculously elevated your smudgy camera roll snaps to a (semi) professional standard? It was fun!

Then, you got wise to all that. Fake news. Targeted advertising. Echo chambers. The outrage economy. You began resenting your time spent on social media, rather than enjoying it.

When a family WhatsApp group (supposedly dedicated to your granny’s health logistics) became swamped with stupid memes, you felt trapped. It seemed like a betrayal when that TikToker (who you only followed, during the pandemic, because they looked cute dancing round their kitchen) began posting conspiracy theories. You stopped responding to those Facebook quizzes—no longer divulging your preferred method of cutlery organisation, or whether you can spot colour patterns in a ballgown—for fear this precious information could somehow be used to compound someone’s eating disorder, or skewer the general election. This was not fun.