Kris Ashton

There’s an argument to say that with social media, information has reached overwhelming – perhaps even toxic – levels.

Information has been key to humanity’s success as a species. We’re not the largest or the strongest or the fastest animal, we don’t have the biggest teeth or claws, we can’t fire poison darts like a cone shell. But because our brains retain and process information to a degree far beyond every other creature on earth, we now find ourselves at the top of the food chain – the apex predator in just about every situation.

Inventions such as the printing press and telegraph changed the way we could distribute information. Once limited to word of mouth or delivery on foot or horseback, thoughts and messages could now be supplied to thousands in a consistent and digestible form or even sent to another country. Newspapers and magazines allowed ordinary people to expand their intellects in ways never afforded their ancestors. Then came radio, television and the internet, each technological marvel in turn allowing faster and more efficient communication of information.

But there’s an argument to say that with social media, we’ve arrived at a point where the supply of information has reached overwhelming, even toxic, levels.

It used to be that information was inherently useful. Learning about the circumstances of a catastrophe in one town could help prevent the same catastrophe in another. A person could read a long magazine article on current affairs or politics and then sit back and analyse it; ponder its finer points or judge its veracity. Even search engines seemed to be for the greater good – a discussion or dispute could be resolved in seconds or an inquisitive mind could have its appetite satiated in minutes rather than hours or days.

But the dark side to this unrelenting flow of information, probably first encountered with 24-hour news channels, is that individuals started shouldering the world’s problems. An endless stream of them. This is especially true for the middle class, which has ample leisure time to devote to worrying about what is happening on the other side of the nation or the other side of the globe.

Going through a social media news feed – an act sometimes known as doom-scrolling – is the most pathological expression of information toxicity yet. On Twitter/X, especially, the bad news, the antagonistic opinions, are literally infinite. Every person’s thoughts and feelings on every single topic, social or political, is fed into the user’s brain. While this is technically information, 95% of it is utterly worthless in a practical sense – nothing more than heroin for the intellect. Well-adjusted and self-aware people come to recognise just how poisonous this can be and abstain from or limit social media use, but many others either become addicted and never comprehend what it is doing to their lives.

On some level I’ve long understood that social media is toxic – I’ve deleted Twitter altogether a couple of times only to relapse – but in the last year or so I developed an appreciation of the damage an unrestricted flow of information can have on the human mind.

The lockdowns and general lunacy of the COVID pandemic left me in the worst physical and mental shape of my life. The media, legacy and social, delivered round-the-clock worst case scenarios and bickering on a global scale. I detested what I had become (under what amounted to a fascist health authority regime): Withdrawn, semi-depressed, seeing the world in monotones, wondering why I was alive at all. For the first time in 40+ years, I could empathise with the phrase ‘existential dread’. Once the restrictions went away, however, I did what I’ve always done when my life seems to be at a dead-end or in a slump. I came out swinging.

Watching my daughter compete in netball lit the long-dormant fire of my competitive spirit and my thoughts turned to squash. It was a sport I had enjoyed since my teenage years, but I stopped with the birth of my children (I simply couldn’t afford the time or energy) and by the time I contemplated a return to the sport, the friends with whom I used to play had moved away. Frustrated, I searched for a local squash club. I wouldn’t know anyone there and almost quailed… and then decided to grow some nuts. I sent an email to the club and I was invited to join their Saturday social games. I’ve now been there almost a year and I’m playing in a Monday night competition as well.

This act was like a domino falling. The squash courts also had a combo deal for their gym, so I quit my fancy corporate gym and joined this one… and discovered I liked it much better. I made friends there, trained harder, improved my diet, started to get into better shape. The depression and despairing outlook went away almost overnight.

A month or two later, I got roped into coaching my son’s soccer team. Last thing I wanted to do, if I’m truthful, but it was either that or no team. So, I stepped up. To say I was out of my comfort zone for the first four or five weeks is to indulge in understatement, but completing something for which I felt desperately under-qualified led to a sense of self-worth I hadn’t felt in years. As an added bonus, my wife and I became friends with the assistant coach and manager.

The point of the foregoing is this: a macroscopic interface with the world is unhealthy. All the life improvements listed above emerged from a microscopic outlook. Small goals in small settings that focused on family, local community, personal improvement. During 2023 I barely had time for social media and when I did look at it, I realised its macroscopic view of the world tended to the absurd and unhinged. “Twitter is not reality” isn’t just a glib phrase; if you put down your device and concern yourself with those immediately around you, not only do you realise Twitter isn’t reality, you discover it is antithetical to reality. It distracts you from what really matters and invites you to obsess over the opinions and lies and (in the case of gender ideology) outright delusions of strangers.

These days the publishing world relies on social media for a great deal of its publicity and promotions, which is the sole reason I haven’t cut ties with Twitter/X altogether (you’ll find me at @wordsmanship, if you’re interested). With a publisher showing some interest in a novel of mine, it could soon be time to start ramping up The Master of Wordsmanship’s post frequency again. Good news… but not necessarily good for my mental health.