Immi Wright @immi_wright

I quit Facebook after I reached v suicidal levels . . . and found I started to feel more confident in myself. I guess FB often presents people’s ideal self. On Twitter I just follow rock stars and @dog_rates, so there’s far less of that to worry about.

Kieran Sangha @kieran_sangha

It’s good in the sense you can connect with others that understand what you’re going through. The downside is that it feeds an addiction, like substance abuse, and it can have the power to take over your life.

Hayley Murphy @hayleym_swvegan

Good. There’s no one, and I mean NO ONE who understands me in ‘real life’. It’s literally life-saving to know I’m not alone. Any tool used in the wrong way can be dangerous, but used in the right way it can be incredible.

Bonnie Burton @bonniegrrl

Mixed. Good because I can connect easily with people who inspire me & whom I admire. Bad because social media ends up being a platform for harassment because there are no consequences for horrible behaviour.

Shylah Ellis @MsEels

As a kid, without social media, I basically assumed I was the only person out there suffering from depression. I felt isolated all the time and the only people I had contact with were toxic. Social media has allowed me to interact with incredible people from all over the world.

Kyle Murray @TheKyleMurray

I work in social media and while I think it has some positives, I think if I could keep up with distant friends in other ways, I’d probably just avoid it altogether. It’s been weaponized by awful people. I’ve had FB since 2004 and mostly for nostalgia factor I keep it live.

James @james____s

A quote I heard recently: ‘Facebook is where everyone lies to their friends. Twitter is where they tell the truth to strangers.’

Abigail Rieley @abigailrieley

Both. I’ve made real friends online & the support if you reach out can be very real BUT if you’re down & feeling useless it can be a window into a world you’re locked out of, isolating.

Kate Leaver @kateileaver

Mixed, but better than its reputation would suggest. Believe legit friendship can be conducted via social media, which is helpful if you can’t leave the house. Getting to glimpse other lives when you’re lonely/depressed is helpful at times.

Jayne Hardy @JayneHardy_

Both, I have to have good boundaries around it but when I manage and assert those boundaries, social media is a positive for me.

Gareth L Powell @garethlpowell

As a self-employed writer, Twitter is like my office water cooler. It’s where I go to talk to friends and colleagues. Without it, I would feel very isolated.

Claire Allan @ClaireAllan

Mixed. As a writer working alone it gives me social interaction which is sanity saving. But I think it spotlights the best & more frequently the worst of humanity so that increases my anxiety.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied @yassmin_a

It’s like anything. It can be great, but needs to be managed well in order for the good to outweigh the bad. Some of my best new friends I’ve connected with on Twitter.

Hollie Newton @HollieNuisance

I like the ideas and the news and the colourful pictures. I like seeing what my friends are up to. Interacting. But spend more than a few minutes . . . And I start to feel, increasingly, like an inadequate nobody.

Cole Moreton @colemoreton

Not good. It agitates me, draws me into its angry argument, then I get repulsed and want to shut it all down. Then the cycle starts again.

Rachel Hawkins @ourrachblogs

Mixed. Instagram can leave me feeling jealous. Facebook makes me feel the rage and Twitter sometimes stresses me out.

Kat Brown @katbrown

Both. I get a lot from it (work, laughter, friends, contacts) but I know that my attention span has totally shifted. My focus is very often online. What’s about to happen? What COULD have happened? News and dopamine = argh.

Nigel Jay Cooper @nijay

There are times when it feels like being in a room full of people shouting at one another and not listening, so I have to step away from it . . . but there’s also the way it connects people, its supportive side and the sense of community. (1/2) I think the smartphone ‘always on’ part of the equation is the bigger thing for me. I have to create time when I put the phone down and focus on the real world around me instead of the virtual one. For me, managing that is the key to not being overwhelmed by social. (2/2)

How to be happy (2)

DON’T COMPARE YOUR actual self to a hypothetical self. Don’t drown in a sea of ‘what if’s. Don’t clutter your mind by imagining other versions of you, in parallel universes, where you made different decisions. The internet age encourages choice and comparison, but don’t do this to yourself. ‘Comparison is the thief of joy,’ said Theodore Roosevelt. You are you. The past is the past. The only way to make a better life is from inside the present. To focus on regret does nothing but turn that very present into another thing you will wish you did differently. Accept your own reality. Be human enough to make mistakes. Be human enough not to dread the future. Be human enough to be, well, enough. Accepting where you are in life makes it so much easier to be happy for other people without feeling terrible about yourself.

7

SHOCK OF THE NEWS

The multiplier effect

IT’S A NERVOUS planet with good reason. The world can be terrifying. Political polarisation, nationalism, the rise of actual Hitler-inspired Nazis, plutocratic elites, terrorism, climate change, governmental upheavals, racism, misogyny, the loss of privacy, ever-cleverer algorithms harvesting our personal data to gain our money or our votes, the rise of artificial intelligence and its implications, the renewed threat of nuclear war, human rights violations, the devastation of the planet. And it’s not just what happens. After all, the world has always had terrible things happening somewhere. The difference now is that – thanks to camera phones and breaking news and social media and our constant connection to the internet – we experience what is happening elsewhere in a more direct and visceral and intimate way than ever before. The experience is multiplied, and leaks out, from a thousand different angles.

Imagine, for instance, if there had been social media and camera phones during the Second World War. If people had seen, in full colour, on smartphones, the consequences of every bomb, or the reality of every concentration camp, or the bloodied and mutilated bodies of soldiers, then the collective psychological experience would have expanded the horror far beyond those who were experiencing it first-hand.

We would do well to remember that this feeling we have these days – that each year is worse than the one previously – is partly just that: a feeling. We are increasingly plugged in to the ongoing travesties and horrors of world news and so the effect is depressing. It’s a global sinking feeling. And the real worry is that all the increased fears we feel in themselves risk making the world worse.

If we see footage of a terrorist attack happening it becomes far easier to imagine another one happening, at any time, wherever we live. It doesn’t matter if, rationally, we know that we are far more likely to die from cancer or suicide or a traffic accident, the sensational terror we have seen on the news becomes the one that dominates our thoughts. And politicians exploit this, and ramp up the fears and create more division. Which leads to more instability and more opportunities for terrorists to do what they set out to do: cause terror. And then the politicians or political agitators ramp up the fear even higher.

It is like someone who is ill with a compulsive disorder continually underlining their fears – staying indoors, or washing their hands 200 times a day. They are actually doing more to hurt themselves, in the name of protecting themselves. But this time the disorder isn’t individual. It is social. It is global.

Shocks to the system

THE WORD ‘SHOCK’ crops up increasingly among political commentators on TV. You watch/read/scroll the news in the 21st century and it feels like a continual barrage of it. Of shock.

‘Oh crap, what now?’ That becomes the general reaction.

You click on your favourite news site in the morning and flinch.