Oversharing on Instagram is narcissistic. Doing it on Facebook is having a meltdown |
I’ve turned one of my abiding memories of the year over in my head many times. It was summertime, hot, and I was in a small jazz bar in Brooklyn for an early-evening show. The audience was sparse, typical for a pre-dusk midweek gathering, maybe around a dozen people. A few were much younger than me, in their 20s. A few were older, probably in their 60s.
When the musicians were on a break, I took out a book to read. Two or three of the younger people did the same, sitting in silence, turning pages. Given the same opportunity to amuse themselves during this pause, all of the older people took out their phones and started scrolling. In the bar’s pleasant gloom, their faces were up-lit by an artificial glow. It would be a reach to extrapolate too much from this scene, but it did feel like it meant something.
A few days later, another scene. I was waiting for a train when I decided to take a photo of the same book I was reading in the bar, placing it on a seat on the platform to capture its cover. I use my Instagram account as a sort of diary to document the books I’m reading. It’s part of a rule I have about social media: only post about things that exist in the real world and are tethered to offline reality; books, articles, signposts to offline cultural events, protest. I’ve found the moment you are solely existing in the digital sphere, things can get warped, so this rule........