Just try restricting MY social media use...
YEAR or two ago I found myself unexpectedly an inpatient in Huddersfield Royal Infirmary – and what was my first thought?
The humiliation of living in a gappy hospital gown? How is my best beloved going to manage without me? Will he put away the Sainsbury delivery? The yuckiness of not having a toothbrush?
No, my first thought was the black, stark misery of realising that I did not have my phone charger. Oh, we granny geeks, what are we like?
And yet our generation have a visceral, instinctive loathing of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and social media generally. The biggest moan and complaint you hear from us is how much we dislike seeing people walking along with phone in hand, checking up on Facebook notifications (note my ease with the jargon, dead giveaway that) and thumbs twitching away at text and email messages.
The kneejerk reaction of politicians, community leaders and church dignitaries is to see this as an example of the breakdown of society, how no one is actually talking to anyone any more. This is isolation, disconnection.
Children must be protected from too much access to the internet. Obviously. Axiomatically. Social
Media is a Bad Thing. Isn’t it?
There is talk about limiting the time youngsters spend on phones or tablets or computers. The Duke of Sussex joined this chorus with the words: “Social media is more addictive than drugs, alcohol, yet it is more dangerous because it is normalised and there are no restrictions to it.” This blatant hypocrisy came just after he and his wife had opened an Instagram account and garnered five millions followers in five hours.
But not long ago I read about a report: ‘Gen Z: Digital generation.’ This attempted to assess the effect that social media had on teenagers. The researchers discovered that teenagers saw “social media as positive and calming.” 56% of the teenagers who responded said that it made them happier.
The researchers found this so disturbing that they radically moved the goalposts, and concluded that access to social media had so damaged the youngsters that they no longer had self awareness and their understanding of friendship, confidence and happiness had been distorted. “Many young people do not recognise that they might be addicted to their social media accounts or that social media may increase anxiety.”
Hmmm…. Why not just accept what these young people are saying? That accessing social media genuinely made them happy, calm and less anxious?
This chimes with what Stephen Pinker found in his research for his latest book, ‘Enlightenment Now.’
“Users of social media have more close friends, express more trust in people, feel more supported, and are more politically involved…. Social media users do not report higher levels of stress than nonusers. … (They) care too much, not too little, about other people.”
Full disclosure: I love social media. I get a lot of pleasure from seeing what my brother is up to on Facebook, what my Swedish cousin is doing. We have a family WhatsApp group and there are regular jokes, banter, love, celebration and compassion winging across the British Isles from Sligo to Inverness, and Liverpool to Grimsby.
I have joined four Facebook patient groups and belong to the British Lung Foundation patient forum. And I gain a lot from all these virtual contacts. The people I now know are friends, yes, real friends. I shall never meet Claire in Tokyo who is waiting for a lung transplant. But I know her well. I know her flat, her dog, what her daughters are doing; and — more crucially — I know her fears, anxieties and hopes. I know from what members have said about these groups that without the support, care and shared experiences of others who are going through the same experiences as them they would feel suicidal. It is acknowledged by reputable research that these patient groups are of real benefit to sufferers.
Our village has a lively WhatsApp group and it may not be an exaggeration to say that in our current situation it is a life-saver. One of the first things that the group did was organise a flyer drop to every house in the village to make sure that everyone in the village, especially those without smart phones or internet access, had phone numbers that they could use for help. It is used to co-ordinate shopping deliveries, to offer and ask for help and items, tell jokes and stories, post videos of songs and films, exchange websites on home-schooling for the youngsters and information about the virus and medical matters.
Woe betide anyone, even royalty, who tries to limit this granny’s use of social media.