The fragmented, lonely, sad dystopia of social media, and how birds can save you.
Here’s a strange thought: lockdown was the apotheosis of social media. The peak, the goal, the fulfilment of its very purpose. Each individual atomised into an online presence, remote, alone, dependant on the drip feed of news media, in need of the social connection social media flatters to deceive you into thinking you are getting. Elon Musk says he wants Twitter to be a ‘town hall’ of free speech, yet in every situation the most extreme of reactions are not just mentioned, but the top of trending lists. Why? Because Twitter is not a ‘town hall’ that enables public discussion but an economy of listless lowest common denominator attention porn designed to just push on the reaction button so that people engage and engage and engage.
This engagement works so well in part for the same reason pornography is so addictive, because it offers you the dopamine kick of a relational interaction without actually giving it to you, so like pulling a lever at a casino you get back just enough to make you keep doing it, even if somewhere in the back of your mind you know the house always wins.
Most of us know Twitter, Instagram or Facebook are doing us no good whatsoever. They facilitate a dynamic of narcism and voyeurism, a valuing of superficial appearance, show, a declarative morality where…
