Elon Musk, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, Meghan Markle, Piers Morgan and Brexit, why media is blah-blah - Lynn News Washed Up column
Washed Up column by Sarah Juggins
I have written in this column before about the value that social media can add to peoples’ lives. Keeping up with friends who have moved away, reminders about birthdays, reminiscing on good times and celebrations from years back, even the odd laugh at a cat video.
Lately though, I have to say that were it not for work purposes, I would be leaving all forms of social media without a backwards glance.
Facebook, where I used to catch up regularly with friends abroad and former college mates, has become one advert or corporate-produced video reel after another.
If it isn’t that, then you can guarantee it is a post on a ‘community’ Facebook page berating someone else for not picking up their dog poo or for playing their drum kit late at night and keeping the neighbours awake.
Then there is Twitter. Even before the takeover by Elon Musk, the Twitter site was awash with very angry people with VERY IMPORTANT points to make.
This is a bit of a generalisation but anyone with a Union Jack flag next to their Twitter handle can be guaranteed to be insulting Meghan Markle or agreeing fervently with anything Piers Morgan says.
Equally, anyone with a ‘FBPE’ next to their name will still be reminding everyone what a mess Brexit has been – despite the fact it is now seven years since the vote and we really do need to try to move on.
As for Instagram. This was the place I went to for happy, charming, beautiful pictures. It was the antidote to all the vile comments spewed out on Twitter.
Now, every third image is an advert, apparently sent to me based on some algorithm that thinks I need a ‘reversehealthapp’ or a eye makeup tutorial by a company called ‘beautilage’.
These are the exact first two ads that popped up on the Instagram page of someone who has a clean bill of health and last wore makeup in 2012.
I have signed up for TikTok, but I have never used the site and I confess to using WhatsApp a lot.
But on the whole, I think my state of mind and thinking brain would all be a lot calmer if I were able to break the bonds that somehow, despite the dross, the Musk-ness and the blah-blah of it all, keeps me logging onto social media, in the vain hope of reading something genuinely worthwhile.