I gorge myself on the content – pregnancies, babies, weddings, divorces, new houses, new partners – on a nightly basisIt’s slightly discombobulating, then, to realise how much I may not now know about the people I follow
A friend of mine recently announced the birth of her child four months after said baby had arrived by posting a relaxed photo of the pair of them at a local pub on Instagram. She didn’t include the baby’s birth weight or lurid details of a gory labour and there was no artisan wooden placard revealing the baby’s name to the world. There had been, previously, no joyful pregnancy announcement, no bump selfies, no scan pictures. No indication at all, in fact, that she had been expecting a baby.
Personally, I am a chronic oversharer. There is nothing chic about my social media habits Although I shunned a wooden name placard, I did announce my son’s birth on Instagram , Facebook , and Twitter and, rather shamefacedly, remember frantically messaging my partner from the hospital with a sweetly staged photo of our son in his hospital crib, claiming he was – cringe! – “ready for the socials”.
By my own measure, then, I am now deeply uncool on social media. That, I think, I’m willing to accept. What’s slightly harder to stomach, though, isBecause, of course, as well as an oversharer, I’m also a hungry gobbler-upper of other people’s lives. Instagram and Facebook have, historically, fed this insatiable desire of mine to know absolutely everything about people I, really, should know absolutely nothing. Via avid and committed scrolling, I’ve been able to keep track of my prom date’s tumultuous love life, coo over my old boss’s new puppy, and enjoy the sweet schadenfreude of a school frenemy’s divorce.