This Week

notification: screen time up 400% this week

BY SOPHIE QUOYLE

As unassuming as it sounds, Lorde’s ‘Solar Power’ prompted me to take another look at my relationship with social media. “Can you reach me? No, you can’t.” struck a chord with me for some reason. Maybe it was something about how liberated Lorde’s response sounded. Or maybe it was just the countless times I’d heard the phrase on TikTok before it clicked.

Generally, I consider myself to be overwhelmingly self-aware of my actions, but why doesn’t this extend to how I consume social media? I know none of this is revolutionary. It seems most students have some bone to pick with Instagram or Facebook, or even Flora.

Maybe it’s how the Facebook notifications change the longer you go without being active. Maybe it’s the way TikTok algorithms adapt to give you more of that desired frog content. Maybe it’s the satisfaction of being included in someone’s ‘Close Friends’ Instagram story. Maybe it’s the need to show your Spotify friends just how cool your music taste is. Oh, what’s my favourite band? The Red Hot Chili Peppers, you probably haven’t heard of them.

Despite this we still talk about wanting to live off-the-grid as goat farmers in Nepal or changing our names and fleeing to a foreign countryside (thank you, Mamma Mia). We have an implicit desire to cut off contact with everyone we know largely because we feel too connected. No wonder then that mental health concerns are so rife within us Gen-Zers. A lot of what we do online seems to be becoming more politicised.

The choice of liking someone’s status update or simply ignoring it suggests something about our character. It suggests something about how sociable, supportive, or attentive we are in a way that watching TV or listening to music does not. We can never be passive in using social media and we can never escape it. There’s an unwritten understanding that we are always available online. We are forever being monitored by our peers beyond the working day. The monitoring and judgement (whether benign, malign, or indifferent) exists in something as simple as someone tagging you in a bit-too-personal meme about your drunk habits or latest shopping addiction.

As a college student, everything on social media is amplified. From the never-ending “Who didn’t flush the toilet?” messages in floor group chats to the niche college Facebook pages that clog up my Feed, there is always something being waved in your face.

These are things that I, for the most part, do not need to read and don’t receive any benefit from reading. However, you never know when that small gold nugget of instant gratification comes along –whether for you it’s a new job opportunity at Moose, DJ Sue performing in Kambri, or sign-ups for the next instalment of ACT Landcare for Singles.

But that’s just what they are: nuggets. There’s no pot of gold when you’ve scrolled through all your followed accounts’ stories or liked pages’ feeds. Just the empty feeling that you’ve just wasted hours of your day. There’s no personal gain from seeing wannabe influencers from high school tagging Mr Winston in every post when you could be studying at the library or bulking at the gym. Yet you do it again anyway after a five-minute studying stint. Sometimes you’ll even go through your Tumblr and Pinterest accounts, created during and not updated since the days of year eight visual arts to avoid cycling through Facebook and Instagram.

Similarly, sure, reading The Sydney Morning Herald may be my preferred way of consuming the news. That doesn’t mean I’m immune to reading the virtue signalling Instagram infographics. I find that sometimes they are actually insightful, other times less so (notably the constant sharing of infographics from the recent Israel-Palestine conflict to one’s story). They’re digestible and to be deployed liberally in a woke university environment where everyone’s opinions are taken as gospel. That, I think, is another problem with social media. We think we need to have an opinion on every current issue even after reading a summary of or completing an introductory course on a complex, ongoing issue. No, I don’t want to hear finance major Harry talk about feminism in the neoliberal age. Social media allows people’s voices to be heard when, in reality, their opinion is frankly unhelpful. Sometimes it’s more productive to just sit back, relax, and enjoy an episode or two of Puberty Blues.

The week after moving into college after semester or term break always puts things into perspective. Following last term’s break, my screen time went up about 400% (what was I doing on my phone?). Suddenly, everything becomes urgent.

“Do you want to grab lunch in 20 minutes?” “Can I come grab your [insert standard stationery item]. My essay’s due in 10!” Or even those Facebook posts that (innocently) say “tag your friend and if they don’t reply in 10 minutes, they owe you [insert food item/dollar amount.”

Even when I desperately need to finish something, I can’t make myself put my phone away or even turn on Do Not Disturb. It’s a monster beyond FOMO.

In writing this, I don’t intend to stop using social media altogether. There are definitely many positives associated with staying connected to an extent. I think I am mainly hoping to remind myself to be more critical and thoughtful about my social media usage and begin to understand where the gratification originates and replace it with rewarding alternatives. I encourage you to do the same.