Social media is warping our view of ourselves. Time for some self-reflection

Like much of the world, Baby Reindeer was my introduction to Richard Gadd. But interviewing him for this week’s magazine, I found I already knew him in many ways.

We’re both from Fife. If the region looks like the head of a dog – which it definitely does to a kid growing up there – Gadd’s from Wormit, where you’d scratch it behind the ear; I’m from Kirkcaldy, where you’d tickle it under the chin.

Turns out we’re born one day apart (well, one day and four years apart) and studied the same English Literature degree at Glasgow University – Gadd starting as I was graduating – and both recall impassioned lectures by David Newell as being highlights of the course.

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Gadd’s new series, Half Man, follows the co-dependent, co-destructive relationship between two men through school, university and beyond. Each needs the other to feel whole, though neither qualifies as a fully rounded individual. The characters felt familiar. I grew up with real-life Rubens and Nialls, as I’m sure Gadd did too.

Our semi-shared origin story is a reminder of how individuals can be defined and redefined by connections with others. Popular culture has long held a mirror so we can get an alternate perspective on ourselves (it’s not always about comparing biographies with TV-makers) but the prevalence of social media is warping the view.

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In its infancy, social media was about sending friend requests to long-lost classmates and people from the same place you’re from. Now it’s a never-ending deluge of content – research from the IPPR found less than one in five posts now come from people you actually know – designed to provoke a reaction. It’s reached its adolescent stage.

In the interview, Gadd talks about the “hole in your soul” that everybody has; people “craving some sort of understanding of why we’re here and where I fit”. It’s an eternal question. During his trial in 399 BC, Socrates said “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Over two millennia later a rebuttal comes from the merry old land of Oz. In the musical Wicked, Fiyero disagrees with that decree, proposing to dance through life instead. After all, he says, “life’s more painless for the brainless”.

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It feels like we’ve landed somewhere over the rainbow where people have realised that it’s easier to skip the self-examination. Who has the time or the inclination for that in the age of information overload? And besides lacking a brain, plenty of heart and a bit of courage are missing too.

You see the results everywhere: surrender to groupthink, a race to the bottom as people abandon their own moral code and politicians, spotting this, lean into crude populism. Life’s unfair? Blame an ‘other’.

But what is everyone doing staring at their phones if not searching for pieces to fill the void? Solutions found on social media – at least until it matures a little – are illusory. When ideas and identities are shaped more by algorithms than personal reflection, distortion follows. 

Toxicity is incentivised. Influencers from the so-called manosphere are one group who have taken advantage of platforms that care only for engagement and never about consequences, providing simplistic answers for all the other incomplete men out there.

A little self-reflection could be the key to solving our dilemmas. “If you chase an external problem to an internal solution, it will provide what you’re looking for,” Gadd says.

Without truly knowing ourselves and recognising what we share, we’re destined to remain only part people.

Steven MacKenzie is editor of Big Issue.Read more of his writing here.

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