I confess, I’ve become a lurker. It’s part of a dark trend away from friends
I still remember my first time. I hacked into my brother’s ICQ messaging account and tormented his friends. I remember my first time on social media when my friend showed me the new site called MySpace, where we could show off our great taste in music and secretly chat with guys.
But I remember most clearly the first meaningful time I spent online. The year was 2012. On my first big solo trip abroad, I was in a bedroom with a balcony overlooking the pool. I carefully arranged the stage, laying out my most valuable belongings. I took a photo on my iPhone, selected the Valencia filter, and shared my first Instagram post.
This started my longest online relationship. For the next ten years, I posted constantly on Instagram. At first I was free and comfortable; I was sharing my friends’ wedding photos with the same enthusiasm as the funny signs I saw in the shop windows. Then my output went from fixed to curated. A favorite fashion editorial, a subtly obscure actress, perhaps an extremely flattering photograph. It’s rare that I reshare more than an infographic in Stories anymore.
In compulsively sharing and being shared, I was expressing the person I wanted to be. I saw my stream as a space for community. But now I’m just hiding. Quietly observing the lives (or more accurately, their products and brands) of others. Inevitably I reached the final circle of online hell: doomscrolling.
There is little mystery about how I fell out of love with the internet. Because even though this change feels personal, I am not alone in this tumultuous relationship. Like most people, I realized that I didn’t want to share too much of myself. While I’m aware of how my data and images are disseminated, my life is less devoted to photogenic fun, and I doubt my followers are as interested in potty training as they were in the parties and holidays of my 20s.
Last year New YorkerKyle Chayka He described this decrease in shares on social media as “Sharing Problem”. While younger generations are conscious of avoiding the “vulnerability hangover” that often comes with overexposure, for Chayka and millennials who were once at the forefront of livestreaming our lives, they are increasingly finding this practice embarrassing.
Much of this evolution can be attributed to age’s ability to eliminate youthful self-obsessions. But the blame can also be placed on the apps themselves. Mark Zuckerberg has spoken extensively about his decision to turn Facebook and Instagram into his own business rather than a social gathering place for friends. called optimistic space for “entertainment and learning about the world and discovering what’s going on.” During Meta’s Federal Trade Commission antitrust lawsuit, Zuckerberg shared that the time users spend viewing real friends’ content has decreased over the past two years.
As an experiment, I recently kept track of the types of content my Instagram feed was showing me. It was all branded content, shopping links, ads, and a handful of media brands or celebrities. There were no posts from anyone I actually knew. Afterwards, I wasn’t mad at Instagram, I was mad at myself.
There was a time when the worst thing the internet could do was make us feel bad about ourselves. Not being able to look at the flashy lives of others and see our own reflection. But now, when I hide thoughtlessly, I can’t see a version of the world I want to live in. All I see are the dull eyes of lifeless AI avatars.
I once loved Instagram, and before that I loved Facebook, Myspace, Livejournal, MSN Messenger, ICQ, even NeoPets. This means that I have witnessed the rise and fall of many techno-utopias since my childhood.
I’ve heard many young people lament what they’ve lost with the social media ban: friends, information, a space to explore and create themselves. I can relate. When I think back to ICQ, LiveJournal, and even the early years of Instagram, I remember a sense of excitement. But I also remember a sense of purpose; Having grown up with this late-stage zombie form of the internet, I don’t believe they know. In my early days on the internet, I could tell you what I was doing there: connecting, taking care of an imaginary pet, having fun, tormenting a brother’s friends. When I reach for my phone today, I often forget why until my eyes adjust to the screen. When I put my phone back I feel worse than before.
Technology critic Cory Doctorow explored this effect and impact in his book shitification. He coined the term in 2022 and it became the Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year in 2024. Macquarie defined it as: “The gradual deterioration of a service or product as a result of reduced quality of service provided and profit-seeking, particularly on an online platform.” It captured a collective sense of frustration at how something that was once so promising (largely the internet and more specifically social media) had gone so badly.
Now the real mystery is not why these digital spaces have become messed up, but why we are still here.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the strength, understanding, or even the will to fix the internet. My almost lifelong relationship with him has taught me that there is an unstoppable cycle of digital life and that good things turn bad online. Safe places become unsafe. I can’t change this, but I haven’t given up hope that I can change myself.
I wish I could say that I threw my phone in the stream or deleted myself from all online spaces. Unfortunately this is not true. I am a child of the digital and physical world. But the painful realization that the internet has attracted, disappointed, and trapped me since the ’90s has led to some self-awareness.
I still find myself on the brink of disaster, but after the third or fourth post from a brand, a bot, or at best a stranger, I start to look up. I see my real, physical life, which sometimes frustrates me but delights and surprises me in ways that no techno-utopia can achieve for even a minute. And I left my phone.
By Wendy Syfret Sunny Nihilist and freelance writer living in Melbourne.
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Wendy Syfret is the author of The Sunny Nihilist and a freelance writer living in Melbourne.
