Calling time on social media

It's not me, it's you...

Beware the Smartphone Zombies!

We’ve all bumped in to them – often literally – those expressionless, hunched, figures, shuffling blindly along the pavements of the world, so hypnotised by the glow of their phone screens, that they are oblivious to other pedestrians.

Maybe you’re one yourself, and have either dipped into the physical world because your battery died, there’s no signal or for a spot of paper-based nostalgia. Or you’re reading this on your phone.

High on the list of online distractions are the myriad forms of social media. Whether you are transfixed by Twitter, immersed in Instagram or fulfilled by Facebook, many of us spend more time interacting online than in real life – with the associated concerns about damage to mental health, bullying, grooming, fake news and all the other potential downsides of interacting online.

If you, or your loved ones, seem to be spending unhealthy amounts of time online, then perhaps an announcement this week by social media behemoth, Facebook, will offer a small comfort.

Along with another of the big social media draws, image sharing favourite Instagram (which Facebook happen to own), they are introducing a tool which will allow people to limit the amount of time spent using the apps.

Is that good? Or a bit like offering a “how to quit smoking” leaflet that can only be found at the bottom of a fag packet once you’ve smoked all the cigarettes?

You’ll be able to see how long you’ve spent adding filters to a picture of your dinner, or sharing cat memes, and set reminders to let you know when you’ve reached your own pre-set limit. You can even mute notifications for a while.

Hardly revolutionary, then. But maybe it will be the kick up the backside some people need. Imagine the horror of setting a ridiculously long-use reminder, only for it to alert you mid-way through the day that you’d already used up your allocation. Perhaps the belief that you only look at the app on and off, versus the reality that you’ve spent hours on it, will be the wake-up call needed to make some people realise they’re spending too much time Facebooking or Instagramming.

Or maybe it’ll be used as a target, immediately followed by a post saying “Spent 15 hours on Facebook today!! Yay! ROFL.” Or a soft-focus picture of the ‘winner’ looking exhausted, but with a dog’s nose and ears overlaid.

LOL? Or #fail?

This post first appeared as my "A wry look at the week" column, in The Mail, on the 3rd of August 2018.

It was actually written after the column destined for the following week. I've been away since Saturday, so wrote one piece on Monday last week, then this one on Wednesday, submitting it the same evening. I know - I'm a machine, right?

(CD A-Z: Another home-made Mash-Ups special. Currently on a beefy beat/rap/distortion version of Kate Bush's "The Man With The Child In His Eyes".)