I’m a big fan of anyone being able to do whatever they want as long as they don’t harm others with their actions and choices. You can be a party animal or a house cat, a barman or an executive in a multinational, you can dress boho, kyrillic or whatever makes you feel good. You can post your whole life on social media or nothing at all. You can do whatever you want.

And, of course, you have the right to change your mind and wishes. For example, I once considered it important to regularly post on my Instagram profile. Now, I don’t care about frequency anymore, I only post when I find the meaning. I also notice a tendency to hide things now. No one needs to know where I was yesterday, with whom and how I spent my time.

Now you will tell me, all this change can be a result of the evolution of age, needs and personality. I, however, will give you one more factor: Everything that appears for the first time arouses our interest, invites us to explore its potential and make the most of it. But then, after some time, after so much use and so much mass, does saturation finally occur? Does it make so much sense to share everything about our lives on social platforms anymore?

The truth is that this sense of saturation was significantly affected by two factors that appeared almost simultaneously: The pandemic, which confined us to our homes, making social platforms almost the only means of escape and communication with the outside world, and the rise of TikTok, that took virality and “all about the money” to another level.

These two factors “gave birth” to a new dimension in the boundaries between public and private: Suddenly, we saw people making videos while crying because something bad happened to them, mothers talking about their problems and difficult feelings, and, in general, people they open up very personal issues to a very wide audience.

What’s the problem with sharing your life online?

Almost none. People love to tell stories, show what they see, what they do, what they think, what they hate and love, what they eat. Since the time of the caves, where people painted with whatever they had inside, essentially the same thing is done with other forms: People communicate outwards, share their experiences with others. Much of the material we “consume” daily on the platforms, from “prepare with me” to “what I eat in a day”, was born from this very impulse.

The issue becomes more complicated when this sharing occurs for financial reasons. Becoming an influencer, going viral, making money by posting content on social media has become the new “American Dream”. Platforms are one part of the race to success, massive markets are another.

All of this has also caused something else: Social media has completely changed the way we see the world itself. For example, how much value does something get when we define it as instagrammable? Museums, bars, bistros and restaurants, all look for this elusive and indefinable quality, to make themselves more attractive and – why not – to gain free advertising, such as that offered by an instagram story. Being able to photograph an event or experience automatically makes it more enjoyable and desirable. But is it so or do they just offer us the possibility to show an idyllic reality in our feed?

This question was raised 12 years ago by Nathan Jurgenson, in an article in The Atlantic. There he talked about the “Facebook eye”, describing it as “the phenomenon in which the brain is constantly looking to identify the moment or experience that would be the most suitable to post on Facebook, that would attract the most comments and likes”.

And a cliche truth: Virality doesn’t really change life

Even if we treat social networks as a work tool, we will notice that there are also significant changes: The prospect of becoming “social media famous” has never been so far and at the same time so close. Close, because any video can “explode” on TikTok, offering a few minutes of fame. And far, because the situation is saturated, and very much so, the competition and the amount of content being spewed out per second makes it very difficult for one to dominate. There’s a long way to go from blowing up a video to securing an entire career, and in any case, profit is getting more and more complicated.

In short, the pursuit of that coveted virality may turn out to be completely futile in the end. And, in the meantime, we will have lost something precious: The wonderful opportunity to live in the here and now for ourselves and no one else.