36 h. ago
Ready to give up social media? ‘Advice pollution’ might just get you there | Emma Beddington
I almost admire the confidence it must take to tell people what to do online. But I long for the days when the internet wasn’t just lists of bossy self-optimisation plansI may have found what will finally wean me off social media. It’s this “things I’ve learned” trend. Take, for example, advice that will supposedly “change your brain chemistry”, courtesy of someone who is definitely not a neuroscientist. Or “my nutrition rules”, from a dewy, gen Alpha sylph who doesn’t realise what they actually have is a teenager’s metabolism. Or “45 things you need to understand” about a place from someone who has spent 45 minutes there. Endless lists of the bleeding obvious: eat intuitively, embrace nature, exercise compassion, remain curious, be childlike, contact friends, put down your phone, put your head in a blender.OK, not that last one, but it’s how this stuff makes me feel. I don’t know what to call it – expertise overload? Advice pollution? A bottomless pit of wisdom brain rot? – but aut...
Politics
