It’s easy to believe the threats, but it’s often forgotten that the diversity of voices on social media has forced us into conversations we wouldn’t otherwise have had for a long time – if ever.
I pick up the phone from my desk. I want to escape my work obligations for a while to social media. The phone disagrees. The text “Instagram was blocked by Opal” appears on the screen.
Opal is an app that I have instructed to block my access to Facebook and Instagram during the working day. Now it reminds me of the rules of the game we agreed on together.
So I have outsourced responsibility for my time to the algorithm. I look at my disappointed face reflected on my phone screen, and I feel impatient. Still, I wonder if Opal’s firewall should be put on a five-minute break.
Someone once wisely said: if you don’t pay for the product, you’re not the customer, but the product itself. The statement is running through my mind now. In exchange for the entertainment that other users upload to the apps, I have sold my time to companies. Now I literally have to buy it back from them.
I especially explain my Instagram browsing to myself by saying that I use it in a professional sense. I follow my colleagues’ projects and social discussions, get inspired and develop my skills as a photographer.
If those who have lost hope are to be believed, we have to go back to the time when, instead of browsing Tiktok videos and sharing polished selfies, Finns spent their free time reading *The Unknown Soldier* with a pipe in their mouth by the fireplace.
The fact that I am not able to manage my time spent on Instagram is a small price to pay for progress.
As a child, like many other children, I was constantly biting my nails. I got a bad-tasting, acetone-laced nail polish from the pharmacy. Still, I understood even then that my nails were not the cause of my chewing.
*Uwa Iduozee*
*The author is an Instagram addict in rehab.*
You can discuss the column on 17.12. until 23:00.