In an age where stories are shared everywhere, and people post their intimacies on social media, who can say that anyone really owns those stories. Every time you post on Facebook, doesn’t it just disappear into the universal consciousness, to be profited from, sure, but not possessed? It depends on who you ask, I guess, and whether you’re the poster or the reader, content-provider or consumer.

Social media gives everyone a voice. Everyone can now curate their own image, unencumbered by the in-real-life perceptions of others (this is worsened by lockdown, where we only see each other online). Everyone can write their own story and speak their own truth. The huge downside to this is our heads are cluttered with the ticker-tape musings, opinions and life stories of people we barely know.

The content on social media is titanic; it takes up a lot of space in the consciousness of anyone online. The effect of one’s inner life is a feeling of overwhelm, which is the reason why many writers (and increasingly, journalists) eschew social media. How to be quiet within yourself when we are bombarded with the sprawling mess of other people’s minds, served up to us on a bottomless social media feed?

Just as importantly, for many writers, the compulsive checking of social media forms a distraction which makes it impossible to get any work done. When I was writing my novel I logged off all social media and it was amazing how much space that left for quiet, rambling musing. The irony is that to sell the published novel, one has to jump back onto social media and become Dorland-esque in self-promotion.

But because social media has inveigled its way into every corner of our lives and for many people, it is where life is lived, it has naturally become subject matter for many writers. Even just from a verisimilitude point of view, you probably need to have your characters on social media in some way. And because social media exposes and amplifies human folly like no other actor, it’s too tempting for novelists to ignore.

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My generation (X) is the last one not to have come of age in the internet age and one day we will be the only keepers of all that is past: letter-writing, brick-heavy encyclopaedias, hours-long landline phone calls and poste restante while backpacking.

I often lament the quiet and privacy of the pre-internet age. There was dignity in its discretion – the knowledge that not everything had to be shared and that there were vast areas of life on which you could safely not have an opinion. I lament how the internet seems to have burgled the concept of an inner life, turned it inside out and put its knickers on display. How this will play out for relationships and politics, it remains to be seen. It’s something for novelists to explore.

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