I’ve got sucked into stupid rows online and regretted it afterwards. So why keep going back for more?
Herself is mad into a woman on the internet called Auri Kananen – though her online name is Aurikatariina – and her career consists of cleaning houses. For free. Before you think of getting in contact with her, she chooses very particular homes. She travels from Finland to the most filth-filled dwellings around the world and scrubs them spotless.
When I say she does it for free, that means she doesn’t charge the people who have been living in this squalor. But that’s not the same as not earning money from it. Auri films her work and the transformation that takes place. She makes about €500,000 a year just from YouTube.
Fair play to her. As to why Herself and 15 million other people enjoy watching this kind of thing is a more intriguing question. Herself says it’s satisfying to watch, even comforting: Auri can arrive into the most fetid, chaotic household and re-establish a sense of order. She rescues people from their own worst excesses. At least for a while.
What Herself does acknowledge is that watching these videos can be mildly addictive. I’ve often caught her (and Daughter Number Four) oohing with titillated disgust as Auri empties out a rot-filled fridge or sweeps up rat droppings.
There are many other examples of this kind of thing online: people making clay pots or crinkling crisp bags or knocking down walls, and for fans of them, the word “addictive” springs up with unerring regularity. Not in a worrying sense. It’s unlikely anyone will abandon their family or end up homeless because they can’t stop watching pimple-popping videos. But it does indicate that online activity does have an effect on our brain chemistry.
I often see (otherwise sensible) people routinely use social media to express an opinion, only to receive an avalanche of abuse in return: and they start abusing back
There is, rightly, much public worrying about the effect that excessive screen-time can have on children and young people. But perhaps we pay less attention to the possibility that it’s not great for adults either. Being aware that the algorithms are purposely designed to lure us back in for more, to tempt us, to antagonise us, doesn’t mean that they aren’t working.
When social media first took off, it was presented, high-mindedly, as a public commons: a place where people could gather to exchange ideas and interests. What it has eventually become couldn’t be further from that civilised concept. Unlike Auri Kananen, some social media – particularly Twitter/X – actively encourage the worst excesses in people. Everyone is reduced to enemy or friend. Abuse is exchanged rather than ideas, and the closest thing to debate is an attempt to extract a “gotcha” moment from adversaries: to “prove” that they are not just wrong about a particular issue, but wrong about everything.
[ Seán Moncrieff: We all need some degree of privacy so we can quietly define ourselves ]
Yet I often see (otherwise sensible) people routinely use social media to express an opinion, only to receive an avalanche of abuse in return: and they start abusing back. I’m not judging. I’ve got sucked into stupid rows on Twitter, and regretted it afterwards. This is because it achieves nothing; or more accurately, the kind of engagement Twitter encourages only serves to deepen divisions, to dehumanise those we don’t agree with. As a forum for discussion on any subject, social media is about as useful as a pub brawl.
So why keep going back for more? If it were possible to do a cost-benefit analysis of having a Twitter account, the cost might be greater, even for those with a large following. It’s certainly not enjoyable. It starts to look addictive.
[ People You’ll never guess what this stunning Seán Moncrieff column is about ]
I include myself in this. I still use Twitter to publicise this column and my radio show. But to make that tolerable, I’ve had to block or mute about 400 accounts. So far.
Meanwhile, the hateful environment that Twitter fosters has leached out into the real world – all under the bogus mantle of “free speech”. It’s a bit like taking up smoking in your 20s. If we had our time over, knowing what we know now, would we have done it at all?
