Nine ways to behave better online.

Last year, we were treated to terabyte upon terabyte of evidence as to the malign influence social media has had on democracy, vanity and the promulgation of uncool Harry Potter memes. Facebook is implicated in pretty much every bad thing that has happened since 2007. Twitter has gone from a larky chatroom to the Verdun of the Culture Wars. Instagram is a hotbed of narcissism, anxiety and shameless hustling. The sage of the tech world, Mr Jaron Lanier, made the case for total abstention in his book Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. From a privacy perspective, from a mental-health perspective and from a can’t-we-all-just-get-along perspective, it’s not looking good.

I have now read thousands of accounts of such arguments. Hell, I’ve written quite a few of them myself. But still, to the amusement of my friends, I am tweeting like a sucker. I always think: but how else would I keep up? And what about that useful Facebook group I’m in? And, I kind of like Instagram. But the dog filter on Snapchat!

I don’t think we should let the data harvesters off the hook, but at the same time, we can learn to use these products with a little more care, restraint and maturity. Here’s how to do so in 2019.

It’s so tempting. Some people think that the world is flat and that school teachers should be armed and that The 1975 are the Radiohead of the 2010s. But it’s just a really bad idea to try and put someone right when you haven’t met them before. Constructive disagreement with friends is OK. Public burns of deserving public figures? Fine. Just avoid the temptation to wade into all the replies. Even if you do get the upper hand, you will return from your lunch break to find 23 notifications on your phone: “Wot?”, “OWNED” and “Your silence speaks volumes #OWNED”. You just can’t win.

#They #make #you #look #unhinged. In fact, maybe don’t use them at all. And also, don’t @ brands – it’s tacky. #puritanlife #minimalism #irony.

If social media feels like hell, it’s worth reflecting that maybe you made this hell. No one forced you to follow @realDonaldTrump or @JuliaHB1. No one held a gun to your head and said, “engage with the Hadids or die!” You could choose solely to follow football Twitter, or architecture Instagram. You could pare it all back and be more selective. Likewise, you could simply use Instagram as a shared family photo album. Unfollow people who aren’t worth your attention. And if they keep popping up, mute them. Such a useful function, it’s a shame it doesn’t exist in real life.

You are not the BBC or CNN or the Foreign Office or Senator Elizabeth Warren (unless you literally are Senator Elizabeth Warren, of course). What I mean is, you don’t need to rush your mental resources to tweet about the unfolding constitutional crisis nor do you need to work out your line on the Irish backstop or a hot take on the Gillette advert. No one will think it remiss if you share a funny pic of a sloth instead of, say, dismantling Mr Jeremy Corbyn. Aim for a modicum of originality. And think especially carefully about joining in witch-hunts or tweeting platitudes about tragedies.

Oh, check you out, you have 982 followers on Instagram! Ah, but let’s face it, 302 of them are online gambling lures and porn-bots and Macedonian sleeper trolls, not forgetting your good friends @a.its.55_xxx and @xtvfew43fn. It has been estimated that 16.4 per cent of the followers of the top 20 Instagram accounts are fraudulent. Even if you don’t make your Instagram private (and if you’re posting pictures of your kids, you should really consider it), you should at least exercise some quality control over who has access. Quality, not quantity.

Everyone knows that social media is full of creeps. But it can also inadvertently turn you into one, if you’re not careful. So, there’s this acerbic young tweeter with a cute profile picture who is just excellent at finding the gif mot juste. You like one her tweets. The algorithm takes note. You retweet another. Before you know it, the algorithm has decided to stalk this person on your behalf. Their tweets are there every time you log on: In Case You Missed It. If you really, really, think you have found your social media soul mate, play it cool. The fact that they “liked” one of your replies is not proof that the adoration is mutual.

There’s a tendency to be all or nothing about social media use: either you’re live-tweeting updates about your microbiome, or you’re trying to live an 1867-style existence. But you can take simple measures to remove the temptation to use it so much. Forget the app-on-app solutions, keep it simple. Block notifications. Delete the apps from your phone for a spell or get a trusted friend to change your password. Put up hurdles so that you don’t use this stuff mindlessly. It’s a really good idea to do this when you have a deadline, or you’re a bit exhausted and your mental resources are depleted. You can always reinstall the apps later, if you want.

I mean, that is truly sad.

We know how this stuff works now. These are not machines to help you chat to your mates. They are designed to extract as much data as possible in order to sell you to advertisers. They are designed to be addictive. They are designed to make you behave in a certain way. But you are not a gadget. You are not some bit of software to be formatted for the benefit of some shareholder somewhere. Your Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and/or Instagram self is only one tiny sliver of your actual self. You contain multitudes! Be inconsistent. Be polite. Be constructive. Be exquisitely discerning about where you spend your attention, because it is finite. And once it is gone, it is gone.

Keep up to date with The Daily by signing up to our weekly email roundup. Click here to update your email preferences.