Compulsive social media checking had become a terrible habit of mine. I would flick between Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram, pointlessly hoping that by the time I began a fresh loop, a new point of interest would have emerged.

Like many others, I find the Pavlovian thrill of being ‘rewarded’ by a like, a comment or a retweet addictive. I started to crave such bitty, superficial attention. All of my social media channels were perfectly curated, and I started to internalise the ‘no pics or it didn’t happen’ mind-set. Technology seems to have created this unprecedented need to be interesting. My feed, while offering a platform to share my photography, became like all social media – engineered to provoke engagement. Essentially, we’re all just trying to technologically shout the loudest.

Last November, I attended a debate at the Barbican which questioned ‘Have we lost the art of conversation?’. As I waited for it to begin, I noticed (ironically) that of the four people around me, two were texting, one was on Facebook, and the other was on Twitter. Ultimately, the debate argued that we haven’t lost the art of conversation. It is the art of listening which we are losing.

“Social media, despite its name, actually isn’t that social”

I am a serious advocate of this. Often, digital conversations become short, disjointed and false, losing the spontaneous intimacy which comes with conversing in real life. A laughing emoji popping up on my phone screen will never replicate the sound of a friend’s raw laughter, nor will a ‘sad react’ ever strike me in the gut quite like a somebody tearing up in front of me. Similarly, when we scroll, half-heartedly glimpsing over a thread of unrelated concepts, our engagement becomes fragmented.

When I quit social media, one thing which I noticed was that it took more effort to maintain friendships. Without the instant mutual link of a comment or like, I was forced to make more direct contact with friends. Weirdly, despite forcing myself out of the online loop – memes and popular content became a little lost on me in conversation – I felt less like I was out of the social loop than ever before. No longer spending my Friday evenings passively moping in my FOMO over other people’s Snapchat stories was refreshing. Social media, despite its name, actually isn’t that social.

I started to adopt new habits: waking up and reading a novel rather than the comments on my Instagram explore page, and falling asleep with a book dropping from my hands rather than my phone falling onto the pillow beside me. Time also seemed to become available in abundance, and unexpectedly, my mind gained a new sense of clarity.

“I do believe that when harnessed in the right manner, social media is a wonderful and powerful tool”

However, six months later, I yielded to constant peer-pressure and re-downloaded Instagram. Before university, I caved to the onslaught of freshers’ Facebook group chats, and I’ve only recently been lured back to Snapchat.

Hence, there is the question of why I returned. For all of the apparent negatives in the above diatribe, I do believe that when harnessed in the right manner, social media is a wonderful and powerful tool. Recently, a boy in my local area went missing. Through the collective power of people raising awareness online, he was found. Likewise, social media allows us to promote a sense of solidarity in times of crisis – the mass online support following the past year’s tragedies only offers a small insight into this. On a personal level, following museums, photographers and educational institutes exposes me to different cultures, ideas, and movements.

Thus, I do return. It’s like going back to junk food when you’ve been eating clean – it becomes very easy to slip into your old routines. Then, when I feel I’m spending more time online than in the real world around me – taking photos for Instagram and spending an hour drafting a witty, engaging caption, I go nuclear and delete the apps once again.

Yet, this will only ever be a quick-fix because I know that at some point, I’ll end up returning. The real world, in all of its glorious, authentic self, is nice to escape from once in a while.

It worries me how easy it is to become a passive recipient to every influential network. It worries me that such a mindless self is just a few clicks away. It worries me that I see everybody else around me drawn into the same, endless vortex. Technology might define our generation, but I think we all need to work a little harder at controlling how it does so, rather than the all-too-threatening alternative