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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. During the pandemic, all of our relationships with social media have taken on a whole different meaning. Since we cannot physically be around people that much, we've increased our dependency on social media unlike ever before and yet, some people have found themselves eliminating social media from their lives to protect their mental health even at the time when you could think they needed at the most. Joining us to discuss these trends and her own relationship with social media is none other than staff writer for The New Yorker, Jia Tolentino. Hi, Jia welcome back to WNYC. Thanks for joining us again.

Jia Tolentino: It is so good to be here.

Brian: Listeners, we want to hear from you. Have you recently deleted one or more of your social media accounts? Which ones? There have been a few high-profile celebrity stories like this in the news recently 646-435-7280, who's quit Twitter or anything else during the pandemic, just when digital connection may also have been a connection lifeline for you? 646-435-7280. We can go down from there who's considered it, but not quite done it? Have you found that your mental health is affected differently during the pandemic by your social media usage? 646-435-7280.

We know harassment is a problem online, but also wondering if there are others that are pandemic specific, like did endlessly scrolling through Instagram become too distracting now that you're working from home? Did seeing some friends defying COVID guidelines, talking about it on social media drive you up a wall? Were you're getting into too many arguments about politics with family members on Facebook? Trump or whatever are all the targeted ads for say wine subscription boxes making you actually drink more or buy stuff you don't really need?

If you have quit one or more social media platforms or have any relationship with social media that's unique to the pandemic tell us about it. 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280 with Jia Tolentino from the New Yorker. Jia, in 2019, you'll remember we had you on the show to discuss your book of essays called, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, in which you in part you explore your relationship with social media and spoiler alert, you have since quit Twitter, would you start by telling us why?

Jia: I have been walking myself away from my use of Twitter specifically, since I started writing the essay about the internet that ended up in my book, which I started writing that in about 2017 and it's was because there's only so long you can spend analyzing the effects of surveillance capitalism on our spiritual selfhood, and continuing to enthusiastically participated in yourself, I sort of needed to walk away as I was making it more visible to myself why these systems were destructive. I had stayed on Twitter for three reasons that remained the same.

It was that sometimes it was fun and I wrote about the internet for work. Then, lastly, I felt that as long as the real world was brighter and more interesting and much more compelling to me than the internet, then I could use the internet however much I wanted, but then all of that changed during the pandemic. The real world for many of us shrunk to the size of one room, and the internet swallowed everything. It got bad.

The internet got a lot worse during the pandemic because of that, because there was no real life, there was much less real life for it to reflect and then it started to get less fun. It started to feel less surprising, less generative, and then Twitter specifically. Then I got off in July because I was about to have a baby in a couple of weeks and I wasn't going to be working for the next few months. I figured I really didn't want to be up all night with a crying baby scrolling my Twitter feed, hour after hour after hour.

Brian: Did you stay on Instagram so that you could post your baby pictures?

Jia: Yes. The thing is, Instagram to me was easier to have a healthy relationship with. On Instagram I mostly follow national parks, famous dog influencers in East Asia, pictures of Wales, National Geographic and my actual friends. Instagram has not really been a source of-- I wouldn't be on it and I would feel like I was wasting a bit of time, but I wouldn't feel this depletion and exhaustion and anxiety and pointless hyperactivity that I would feel after being on Twitter for too long.

Brian: If you're making that distinction between Twitter and Instagram, how about Facebook?

Jia: Facebook, I haven't been on that for years. I think there's something meaningfully different about the architecture of all of these social networks. Twitter is structured around the retweet, the quote tweet, the massive influx of viral exposure, it's structured towards conflict, and this overheated coliseum fight to the death discourse. That's where its harm comes from.

Instagrams harm I think comes from its extremity. Its tendency towards extremity comes from aspiration and the way that aspiration is monetized and valorized on that platform. With Facebook, I think much of its damage comes from the way that it replaces civic community connection in these Facebook groups that balloon to enormous sizes and produce all of this conspiratorial thinking that we've seen jump into real life extremely hard over the last year.

Brian: Jeff in Montclair, you're on WNYC. I think Jeff is going to be on our last point here making a distinction between different social media experiences. Hi, Jeff.

Jeff: Hi, how are you? Thanks for having me on. To speak to the last speaker, I think that there's a lot in that that Twitter really is in lots of ways about conflict. The distinction I see is a place like Twitter, where people get really embroiled in the arguments, and get personally, just very in a way sucked into it, but it just becomes very emotionally important also.

For me, at the other end of the spectrum is Facebook. My main use of Facebook is to stay in touch with people that I have not necessarily seen for 15, 20, 25 years. I really, really value that. I think Facebook is really-- It's just nice for that, so that's just a distinction that I think monitoring what you're getting out of it, and how it's involving you.

Brian: Jeff, thank you very much. Let's go next to Penelope in Manhattan, who hasn't necessarily had as positive an experience with Facebook during the pandemic. Hi, Penelope.

Penelope: Hello, it was blocked when you said Penelope before so I didn't know I was on. Anyway, to get to the point. Yes, one, I'll start with a positive, I agree with the last caller. I had a reunion at my high school art and design and they were friends. Many of them are deceased now and it was nice to finally reach out with them. However, when I'm on Facebook, some people get so argumentative and they sting to the quick on very little information.

I have worked with an investigative reporter in the past that was art director for Greek American paper, I believe in democracy, freedom of speech, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and nobody substantiates their comments and I don't like to get into arguments so there are some people that when they get stung to the quick and don't listen to my link so where I have substantiated my comments--

Brian: Penelope, did you find that these were pandemic relevant? Were people getting more into more arguments with you or each other on Facebook during the pandemic about Trump and pandemic denial or whatever it may have been?

Penelope: Yes, on both those counts. On the prior president it gets heated political issues.

Brian: She doesn't know what I'm saying [unintelligible 00:09:15]

Penelope: Also, on the pandemic, I have a lot of contrary views and I don't want to get too vocal of our [unintelligible 00:09:24] about it, but I have looked into it. I know a gene researcher, I know that this experimental and I like to have my freedom of choice.

Brian: Penelope, thank you for all of that. Jia, what about the quality of interaction and the quality of argumentativeness during the pandemic period with all the politics that were going on at the same time?

Jia: I think that one thing that has been really useful to me in actively evaluating and re-evaluating my own relationship with social media is-- And I think that's something that's become much more obvious during the pandemic, that much of what we seek online, a space where we can have arguments, a space where we can engage with ideas that we disagree with, or even find a quorum. We are looking for those things for a good reason, but they are almost never satisfying online.

We're meant to have much of what we're looking for like connection and finding out things about people and also the space for debate, we are looking for these things that actually-- An argument in real life about politics, it's maybe equally frustrating, but it's kept in line by the human dimension of actual presence that when you remove that, argument takes on a completely unsatisfying dimension on the internet.

Brian: Elizabeth in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hey, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: Hi, thanks for taking my call. I've never been someone who did Facebook, but I did get onto Twitter during the last couple of years of Trump and following all the politics and people's thoughts. I actually just signed off as a result of Chrissy Teigen saying that she was signing off. It just occurred to me, it was the impulse I needed to actually say, "Enough is enough." I feel like it's been an antidepressant. I feel like I've got so much space. I feel like I'm back to myself. It's an addiction in a way. I just have been really pleased to be off. It's made me very happy.

Brian: Why Chrissy Teigen? I have to admit that Chrissy Teigen quitting Twitter was actually the impetus for this segment. We started to talk more among ourselves about other people who are not big celebrities who are doing it too. Why did Chrissy Teigen, who probably lives a very different life than you do, Elizabeth, touched this off for you?

Elizabeth: Well, it's really just the power of suggestion. I think it was that I was signed on so anytime I went to my computer it was there and I could look at it. It was almost as though it had never occurred to me. I didn't even have to quit. I could just sign off and then it wasn't going to be there constantly to check in. I literally have not looked at it since. Really, it's almost like advertising. It was like someone said it and I thought, "Oh, yes, I can do that." That's all I can say.

Brian: Elizabeth, thank you so much. Jia, what are you thinking? You laughed when I mentioned Chrissy Teigen.

Jia: Well, I think it's great. I think a lot of our use of these social networks, it's almost like our hands-- A lot of what we do with our phones, our hands are doing these motions almost on their own at this point. It's this like neurological compulsion. Once you put slight boundaries in the ways like logging off, or what I did was change my password to a 25-character random string of things and wrote it down somewhere so that if I really needed to get back on like the day that our former president got coronavirus.

I wanted to see the discourse, I had to go physically get this little piece of paper and type in this string of characters. It can help to just remember. We do a lot of stuff out of inertia that we aren't actually happy about and that we don't want to look back at our lives and think, "Oh, I spent two hours a day looking at stuff that I forgot as soon as I went to bed." Or "I regret having this knowledge in my head."

Brian: Do you think that humanity’s experience with social media is a depressing lesson in human nature? I hate to put it that globally and that negatively. I'm thinking, even in relationship to this show, when Twitter first came in, even when the internet first came in to go way, way back then, I think there was a sense of, "Great, we're democratizing information, democratizing conversation around news." The wisdom of the crowd, that expression will self-correct.

People who are spreading disinformation or who are just wrong on things sort of reason well out when everybody gets into the act. We've always had a comments page on our website for the show. When Twitter came in we found that we were getting more thoughtful comments on Twitter than we were on the comments page, but that's no longer true. What does any of that curve say to you?

Jia: I think that it's always going to be true that there's a democratizing force to social media that is necessary and valuable. At the same time, that we're seeing the results of-- I think it's not so much a lesson about the irreducibly flawed and degraded human nature as it is, I think a lesson in-- These companies have so many psychologists and data scientists teaching them how to make these platforms maximally addictive. There's no shame in admitting that we’re doing what the platforms are intending us to do at great profit and with really, really involved levels of design. It was at the beginning like everything was going to be like the Arab Spring, but now the cumulative, the overall effect I think we're seeing is not quite that at all.

Brian: My guest is Jia Tolentino from The New Yorker, who among many other things, famously quit Twitter, not that long ago. We're talking about our social media experiences during the pandemic with Jia. Your calls at 646-435-7280, and appropriately, your tweets. Rachel on Twitter writes, "I got to say the forced quitting of certain politicians who just couldn't stop themselves from lying and spreading hate certainly helped my social media mental health." That's pretty interesting. Obviously, she's referring to Trump. Then we get the idea that Twitter banning certain people from Twitter can improve the overall Twitter environment. How much do you think that's true?

Jia: I found Trump ban on Twitter to be so depressing in so many ways. It was like, "Oh, now that the Democrats control the house as of this morning, you might face some meaningful regulation finally after four years now that Trump has fully lost power, he's gone." It was depressing to realize-- I was on Twitter that week because of my compulsion. I got back on it and looked.

It did feel like you would put on noise-canceling headphones. It was like this oceanic calm. You realize then that these companies, they are more powerful than any nation-state. They have so much power. I tend to think that the solution to improving these experiences, it's not going to lie in piecemeal moderation. It's a fundamental reevaluation of the economic premise of the social networks, which is the thing that makes them money is compulsive use and compulsive use comes from conflict.

Brian: I’m sorry. Go ahead and finish the thought. I’m sorry.

Jia: No, no, no. Let’s go to Alex.

Brian: We'll go to Alex in Astoria on demand. Hi, Alex. You're on WNYC.

Alex: Hi, thanks so much, Brian. I can relate a lot to the last caller because I found that when I deleted Instagram and Facebook as a side result of the pandemic, I feel very liberated, like something's been lifted off of me. A little bit different from your guest speaker is that I actually found that my inner circle was stressing me out a lot more than the political world and what was going on. I'm very extroverted and so I thought social media would help a lot during this time, but not only did it not satisfy my need for social presence, it made me very anxious because of all the anger at the world from unsubstantiated claims from my friends that was stressing me out.

It also made me really angry when I was seeing friends who were not social-distancing and not complying because for me, God-willing, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I didn't want to lose friends over something that I hope will pass and in my lifetime I'll never experience again like a pandemic. I found that getting rid of the more indulgent forums and the more personal forums, which were Instagram and Facebook, was a really good move for me.

Brian: Interesting. Do you think you'll go back as the pandemic lifts?

Alex: It's so hard to know. I don't miss it whatsoever, so I don't see why I would. I did keep Twitter because I do like feeling connected to the world and I feel like I can read more interesting things on Twitter and they're shorter and they tend to be a little, in my opinion, less self-indulgent. I don't see myself going back. I feel really good without it.

Brian: Alex, thank you very much. Similarly, listener Mackenzie tweets, "It was really tough because social media during quarantine has become the easiest way to keep up with friends I can't see. Especially those who have new quarantine babies. I think I'm going to quit again though. I had to quit social media before for a few months in the fall of winter. I've been in tight quarantine with a high-risk partner, and seeing how nonchalant people were with their behavior at the height of the winter surge was infuriating. I'll never see some people the same way now." Jia, that was without even seeing them in person. They have a similar experience, Alex and Mackenzie.

one of the conditions of being a human with access to the whole world in your pocket is that you are able to know this unlimited amount of information that you are able to do very little about. I think that the way that wears on us emotionally and socially, this is what we're all talking about.

I think that the anger that people would feel when they would see people in their social circles or even people they didn't know not wearing masks being out in public, so much of that is a frustration that we were all essentially powerless in the face of the larger context of the entire pandemic being handled so, so badly. As a result, much of our anger got directed, myself included, towards what we could see on social media, which was the people we knew doing things that terrified us.

Brian: John in Fairlawn, you're on WNYC. Hi, John.

John: Hi, thanks for taking the call. I'm a clinical psychologist, well, I'm not an active user of social media. I have had to tell so many of my clients, I've given them a homework to get off social media because it was just sucking them into the vortex of depression and pain. Also, just in terms of the anxiety of getting out into the world, I found people who were so active in following all the numbers, not reading the information about the listing of certain restrictions, the CDC guidelines of what you can do if you are vaccinated.

That positive information was being completely left out from their narrative. I just found that so interesting that you're just in one direction like, "I need to stay home. I need to stay away from everyone," that you're only reading the articles, you're only reading the information out there that follows that line of thought and it's just creating such [crosstalk]

Brian: That's interesting. For you as a psychologist with clients, you found that social media was reinforcing the worst fears related to the pandemic and increasing anxiety in a number of your patients, is that the pattern you're describing?

John: Absolutely. I've had to do exposure, generalized exposure, gradual exposure for people to get them into the world. This was months after we've established this normal way of being outside with masks, staying away from people. I differentiate between what we call COVID safety, which is the following the CDC guidelines, and COVID anxiety, which is where people will go above and beyond, majorly above and beyond the guidelines. They call it safety, but really it's just an acting out of fear. I think that's reinforced by what people are reading online.

Brian: John, thank you so much for that. Juliana in Astoria, you're on WNYC. Hi, Juliana.

Juliana: Hi, Brian, thank you for taking my call. I'm a great fan. Thank you for everything. I just wanted to say that actually, especially last year, I started using Instagram more often. I think especially during the very harsh months of the pandemic, both on Instagram and Facebook, we have access to so many concerts. It's like singers and musicians that were doing things and interesting live events which I wouldn't have had the chance to go to and to attend either in France or Brazil.

There was a lot of good also coming out. Of course, it's social media. You have to know how to navigate and you have to balance otherwise you get a lot of stress. I just thought that was very, very welcoming thing. I was attending so many things that I enjoy and which otherwise I wouldn't have been able to attend. That helped a lot.

Brian: Yes. All this negativity you're saying let's not forget the positive sides?

Juliana: Absolutely. They're very smart people, conscientious. Also good, also things, information. You just have to know where to go and filter. Of course, there are also the profiles with like the toddler and the three poodles that make me very calm at night and help just so I can [unintelligible 00:24:09]. That's also very therapeutical. You don't need to get involved in a trash part of it, which I try not to, but there's a lot of good in it as well.

Brian: Juliana, thank you so much. Jia, maybe the headline out of this whole segment is animals are great on social media.

Jia: Everyone, follow more dogs on Instagram, and then you'll like it. I want to say to that last caller's point, one thing I relied on Instagram and I think a lot of people did for protest information this summer. I have relied on it a lot for volunteer opportunities and community organizing work or community organizing connections. We saw an enormous amount of good come out of social media this summer, where we saw a lot of documentation of police brutality at the police brutality protest. That's an aspect of it that I do not underestimate and has been a big reason why I've stayed on Instagram, in particular.

Brian: One more Jim Bay in Harlem. You're on WNYC hi, Jim Bay.

Jim: Hey, Brian, hi everybody. Yes, I'm on social media, I am on Facebook and Instagram, and Twitter. Twitter, it can be confrontational for me. I always try to save the world. I'm one of those people. I have to tell everybody, "You should do this and you should do that, you shouldn't do that." It gets a little bit much, but on Facebook, I like because I can talk to friends and things like that.

I'm a photographer, when I put up images that are nice and pretty, people, they comment and they click on it, but when I put something that's substance, not that my images aren't of substance, but when I put something that's important, that's socially aware, I don't get as many reactions or hits or interactions. I noticed that. That's the issue I have with that. Instagram is a nice platform. It used to be nicer. Facebook messed it up a bit, but it's gotten more confrontational instead of-- It should be what it was at a visual, a visual medium. That's the way I look at it.

Brian: Jim Bay. Thank you. Thank you so much. We just have a couple of minutes and then-Mayor De Blasio, who is riding the rollercoaster at Coney Island and is late for Ask The Mayor for that reason--

Jia: I'm so jealous.

Brian: A little behind the scenes is getting awful. I'll ask him how his stomach is, and the mayor will be here in a minute. Jia, thank you for your patience. It's going past your originally scheduled time, but in your book, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, one of the topics that you dealt with in your book of essays was scammers, I wonder if you followed that at all during the pandemic in any particular way. It does seem to me-- I don't know why this is an end of one it's not scientific at all, but there are more scam attempts coming into my phone than ever.

Jia: One of the great truths that I think will emerge from the pandemic year is that the more levels of mediation enter into an experience, the more estranging, the more unsatisfying, the more artificial it will be. The thing that we're all so hungry for is unmediated experience. I think the more that everything has been handled digitally this year, the more space there is for deception and deliberate misinformation of any kind and profit being made off of the misuse of trust.

There's more and more room from that, the more distance we have from the people we're talking to and the things that we're seeking and what we actually need and want. Yes, it's no surprise that the scammer energy would increase during a pandemic when everyone is handling their life through a digital interface.

Brian: By the way, I think this was from your book too. You've been on the internet at least since you were 10. Sort of distinguishes you from that many people these days depends on what you call the internet, it doesn't mean you're necessarily on Twitter or Facebook, but do you see it changing as the generations evolve? What it means to be on the internet or on social media as a 10-year-old today compared to when you were 10.

Jia: Yes, I think that we are seeing-- We haven't talked about TikTok, which I think is a dizzying and terrifying platform in many ways, but the use of it by teenagers today it speaks to a desire from something other than the monolithic platforms that have dominated the last 5, 8, 10 years. TikTok at least it has-- Its anarchic, it's fractured. It's not the thing where everyone is looking at the same thing. I think that there is a hunger for something else, for more private spaces, but I really think that the internet is not going to revert to something better unless there is significant regulation on the business models and the algorithms that make these companies go.

Brian: Jia Tolentino is a staff writer for the New Yorker and author of Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion. Jia, it's always great to have you on. Thanks a lot.

Jia: Thanks for having me.

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