A (less) social life – La Stampa

I spent a great weekend with my son abroad. The first time alone. Unforgettable. But I didn’t put it on social media. I haven’t done a post, I haven’t punctuated our moments in a stories, I haven’t filmed it for a reel. Did it really happen? That is, did that weekend exist even if it isn’t on social media? Of course, yes, but in a few years Facebook and Instagram won’t remind me of what I did at the end of May 2022. They won’t be able to. There will be a hole.

Does that make that weekend less real? In a certain way, yes. When social networks arrived, it was automatic for many to use them to tell every moment of the day. A public diary. The good morning, or worse, the very good morning, the things we eat, the outings. Even some – a few, thank goodness – had installed cameras in every room of the house so that we could all follow them without having to post anything. Why did they do it? Back then it seemed like a very cool thing, a kind of life hacking, today I struggle to remember the answer. But this fact of sharing the highlights of our days remains very widespread (I admit: I look at what my contacts share every day). At one time I did this daily sharing too, now much less. I have not become antisocial, quite the contrary. But I felt a creak. It felt like I was turning my life into a show, or a TV series, where I was on stage and others watched.

The unforgettable weekend with my son is not a secret: at a class dinner yesterday I told a few moments. That’s enough. But the photos I took are on the smartphone. In a few years, Google will send me a video in which he will have edited them with a theme tune. The cloud always knows everything.