When does your social media usage become a red flag?

PINTS over frivolous chat, flirty energy to-and-fro. It was a normal date until she exclaimed a “red flag”.

My lack of social media was enough to induce red flag reflexes in her, something I’d usually retain for nasty plaque between one’s teeth, or a bodily mosaic of fake tan smears.

It was a light-hearted jibe by her, no doubt, but veiled over some truth, I’m sure. I understand why someone would feel this way about a lack of social media. I’ve opted to exist outside a modern convention that has been surreptitiously imposed upon society over the last 20 years – the online profile.

Without an online profile, you’re seen as an oddball outsider, like a Hell’s Angel or a hippy in a commune. You’re outside the realm of expected protocol, and people gasp – how can you even live that way?

However, who actually agreed to this convention? Or is it a gargantuan experiment steered by market forces to determine ‘what we want?’

Now, people have Facebook accounts that are 15 years old, documenting their rise through life from teenagers to middle-age, containing those blurry nightclub shots from 2008 with the retro time stamp in the corner. Vodka and Coke in one hand, cigarette in the other, terrible noughties outfits all round.

Why adopt this convention? Why keep these photos online?

I grew uncomfortable with the imposed permanence of social media and asked myself, why have I got personal photos online from 2010? Whether I’m partying or travelling or doing whatever – why are these photos online?

I couldn’t come up with a good answer, and to date no-one has offered me one that satisfies. I then took it a step further and deleted the accounts entirely and it’s surprising how little they’re missed.

Back to my date – her comment got me thinking. If having no social media is a red flag then what about having too much social media? When does the hand on the dial swing in the other direction, cross a boundary line, and become a red flag?

What if you have thousands of Facebook photos? For whom exactly? And for what? All they do is demonstrate a plethora of bad taste and redundancies, and yet, for you, deleting them is inconceivable.

This obsessive level of attachment to posting I find borders on mental illness. A red flag?

Or how about endless Instagram stories of gym selfies? I thought the eye was the window to the soul – not the glutes. I realise you’ve put a lot of effort into those holiday hams of yours, but what are you showing off exactly? That your clothing is now a little tighter than it was a few months ago? That’s amazing!!! Maybe if you keep going you’ll burst out of them completely. Documenting every visit to the gym – ever – isn’t proof that you’re interesting. It might actually be the opposite. A red flag?

Another one that bemuses me is when people have a chronological catalogue of all their exes on their profiles. People like to suggest that it’s a photo album of memories – no problem, I love photo albums – but people used to keep those memories in shoe boxes under the stairs – not online for the world to see.

Are you showing off the people you’ve been with? Or are you so attached that you can’t let go? I feel for your current squeeze, who has a constant reminder of how much you enjoyed all your previous squeezes.

In the words of the comedian Sebastian Maniscalco, “Isn’t anyone embarrassed anymore?” If you’re a grown man with a Snapchat account, then I’m immediately suspicious. Ages 15-25 make up nearly half of the entire domain.

I don’t care if it’s a messaging service – use WhatsApp like an adult. When an interface has little cartoon avatars per account, that should tell you something loud and clear. If you’re over the age of 30 and using Snapchat – a red flag?

How about TikTok. If there was ever an app that was purposefully designed to incinerate time – it’s that.

I view TikTok as the blatant amalgamation of all the most addictive qualities of all the apps combined into this leaching Frankenstein force. The short videos, the endless suggestions and the lightning quick edits.

People allow TikTok to dredge to the pits of their prefrontal cortex until all that’s left atop their shoulders is a spherical vacuum, with eye holes absorbing hyper-stimulating clicks and pings and bongs, as the inside of their skull looks like an inverted disco ball, swirling with light beams and glitter.

TikTok can fill your mind to the very brim and empty it of all substance simultaneously until nothing is left but a confetti-filled void. Red flag? Too dramatic?

Yes, yes, I’ve heard you love to watch cleaning videos, inspirational videos, animal videos, blah, blah, blah... Go buy some cleaning products if it’s that much of a fetish. How about reading the book the influencer took the inspirational quote from, or getting a pet?

Remember Tamagotchis? A grown adult obsessed with digital animals that they will never come into contact with is strangely close to them. It may as well be virtual reality – because your reality is virtual.

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he doesn’t exist.

These social media apps that have been supplanted into norms with their hyper-addictive tentacles spreading throughout society, invisibly coercing users into uploading their lives onto the internet, are, in my eyes, webs of magic.

The phantom scaffolding has slowly been erected throughout our psyches for the last 20 years. All with the intention of clicks. Constant, never-ending, attention-devouring clicks.

Some readers may think I’m extreme. Thirty years ago, our online habits would have been considered extremely extreme. Maybe I’m a Luddite (TikTok users will have to Google that word). If deeply considering my existence and how I interact with the world, and more particularly the online landscape that has been thrust upon me, makes me a Luddite, then so be it. But what does that make the intensive social media grazers? Sheep? Customers? Numpties? Red flags? You decide.

When I’m detached from the online landscape and in tune with myself or my surroundings, I feel green flags waving in the wind tunnel of my mind. Whether I’m working on something that requires concentration and I’m aiming towards the end of my focal limit lit up with imagination. Or I’m simply at peace, enjoying the wonder of a book, the swaying of nature, and the richness of silence. I’m superior, don’t you know?

Or maybe I’m just boring, but it works for me.