This essay contains brief mentions of OCD and pro-eating disorder content online.
I have a bad habit of picking at scabs.
Like at the moment, on the back of my heel, hardened skin leftover from burst blisters, the remnants of a twelve hour heel-wearing session. I’m not picking because it hurts, or even because it itches. Not because there’s leftover pus or skin, not because I think it will help to rip my body’s in-built bandaid off before it settles to a callous. I’m simply picking it because its there.
It’s a strange and delusional impulse — hoping that this time, maybe, I’ll reach down and it will be gone. Bloodless and smooth. That this time, this thing that I’m doing, whether consciously or subconsciously, will have worked.
It’s kind of like that with my phone.
Let me explain.
In the UK in 2021, the average mobile phone use was four hours a day, a marked increase from three hours in 2019. Analysis suggests that over 200 million people worldwide exhibit signs of social media addiction, with teenagers in particular affected. Personally, I pick up my phone about 200 times a day, spending approximately five hours on the screen. Add to that the time I spend procrastinating on my laptop and I’m wasting nearly a quarter of my 24 hour days staring at a screen. I’m not vehemently anti-phone — how could I be? There are benefits I could never live without, like talking to my friends abroad and long distance partner, or the ability to find a flatmate online. But most of the time I’m not receiving these productive or positive gains.
I’m just staring, glassy-eyed, at a glassy screen which keeps staring back, which never blinks, which will always be waiting for me when I open up my eyes.
There’s a bit in the documentary ‘The Social Dilemma’ which discusses the tactics social media companies use to get you to open your phone, such as targeted push notifications, particularly during lulls in usage. I know these push notifications are manipulative, but even so, whenever my phone whistles invitingly towards me — whether with a friend’s message or my morning CoStar — I will dutifully trot halfway across the house to pick it up. It feels like an addiction; If I can see my phone across the room, out of reach, my chest starts to tighten, and I can’t concentrate. And once I’m hooked in, I can’t get away, no matter how many meaningless Instagram Reels I have to scroll through. I just can’t put it down.
Popular new app BeReal uses the power of notifications to its fullest. Labelled the ‘Anti-Instagram’ and currently topping App Store charts, BeReal allows users to post a single photo at a random time throughout the day. The excitement of waiting for and receiving that notification provides a serotonin rush which gets users hooked — but it also makes it incredibly addictive. Subsequent notifications, telling you who has posted, fuel a sense of FOMO common in the mainstream social media BeReal seeks to reject, as you can’t see their photos until you post yourself. It’s supposedly all about authenticity, but it isn’t really authentic at all.
Yes, it cuts out some of the fakeness and the filters, but just like Instagram BeReal is all about curating a perfect life — showing that you are having the best time IRL, all the time, and that you’re also able to tell the internet all about it in a beautiful way. As an article for the Washington Post puts it, ‘Just being on BeReal is itself a performative act: an opportunity to tell everyone we know, “I am authentic.”’. But this authenticity is a stylised one — more than once I’ve uploaded a BeReal in the middle of a panic attack. I know it’s not sensible, and I know it’s not real, but I just can’t stop doing it. None of us can.
When I was a child suffering badly from OCD, I had to enact certain compulsions, without which (my malfunctioning brain assured me) everything would go horribly wrong. I had a blue plastic watch which was the conduit for many of these behaviours — tapping it several times after flushing the loo, or placing it carefully in the same position every night before I fell asleep. If I didn’t wear it everywhere — even swimming or in the shower — my body would seize up in a panic attack.
Personally, my OCD compulsions have subsided with age and therapy, but I fear my phone has stepped up to fill the gap. It’s the first thing I go to in the morning and the last thing I do in the evening. I feel naked, itchy without it. I take it to places it shouldn’t be, the toilet, the treadmill, to lectures. And if I don’t check it for a certain amount of time I get anxious — what if I miss something, what if something’s happened? What if when I do log on I’m out of touch with what everyone’s talking about, with the next big thing?
What if I miss the BeReal?!
These aren’t positive desires, and whilst discussion around online ads and algorithms often focusses on how they ‘reward’ consumers, I’m not really sure what rewards I’m receiving. Barely anyone seems to play App Store games anymore — there’s no rush of winning Temple Run or the satisfying ker-ching! of Candy Crush. Instead, in our social media centred world, my desire to pick up my phone feels far more like the need to pick at a scab, or an OCD compulsion. To do something I know is harmful, but have to do anyway.
Social media feeds mimic OCD’s intrusive thoughts, surrounding users with images and messages which consume their attention with a sense of urgency and pressure to respond, especially as apps like Instagram focus more on recommended content rather than users’ individual followings. I noticed recently that my Twitter recommended is all pro-ana girls with ballet shoe emojis in their bios, whilst my Instagram recommended is all gym bros expressing disgust at their bodies. I’ve not been seeking this content out, but it’s like the algorithms are reading my mind — they know what my brain wants to see, even if it’s not what it should be seeing. Yet even as I acknowledge their toxicity, I can’t stop scrolling. Maybe the next post will be the one that changes my life.
I know in my heart that it isn’t good for me, that the consequences could be dire for my mental health, but I’m still convinced that maybe this time I’ll do it and finally, finally, everything will be okay.
Every time I pick up my phone, I’m picking at a scab.
I don’t know what will happen when it finally comes off.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1285042/uk-daily-time-spent-mobile-usage/
https://truelist.co/blog/social-media-addiction-statistics/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/27/bereal-app-curated-social-media-gen-z/
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/bereal-app-what-how-to-use-b2126380.html