This column first appeared in Malta Today

Like most of Western civilisation at this point, I too do my share of social media scrolling which gives us a regular, daily glimpse into so many lives. Sometimes I learn so much about people I barely know, because of all their self-published info, that it almost feels voyeuristic and intrusive.

Yet, there it is every day on my feed, in varying degrees of realness and authenticity, and invariably, it makes me wonder how we got here.

We used to be a nation which was almost paranoid about being secretive and keeping everything hush, hush, not wanting anyone to know our business. Friends were kept to a minimum and at arm’s length, neighbours even more so, the circle was tight and the concept of inviting people who were not family into our homes was so entrenched there are several Maltese proverbs in this vein. “Il-ħbieb sal-bieb” (friends only up to your front door) and even more tellingly, “Tikxifx għajnek man-nies” (don’t tell people your business). Over-familiarity was considered being nosy and prying, and you could sense the invisible shutters coming down if someone asked too many personal questions. The lack of trust and the immediate default position of suspicion was (and, in some cases, still is) very ingrained in our culture.

Today, from not wanting outsiders to step inside their front door, many now literally invite us into every corner of their home and their lives. Whereas in the past you would need to “ask around” to find out what kind of family a person comes from (“ta’ min huma” – as we say), these days a few clicks can give you all the background checks you need to know, worthy of any neighbourhood gossip, sleuth or private detective. The fascinating thing is that people are giving it all to you freely and voluntarily, on a plate. I would hazard a guess that of the 87% who use social media for their source of news (according to a recent Eurobarometer survey) most of these users also freely divulge everything they do, where they go and their personal photos on a regular basis. Everything is documented, for posterity, forever.

So-called “influencers”, of course, do this for a living in order to promote something, which is why it is disconcerting that the same survey revealed that Malta tops the EU in following influencers or content creators online. Just over half of respondents (51%) said they follow such figures. According to an analysis by MT’s James Debono, “Among Maltese followers, half (50%) said they do so for product reviews, but political and motivational content also plays a significant role, each cited by 37%. Another 36% said they follow influencers to get a glimpse into their daily life or for tutorials.”

Of course, this could all be as harmless as when we used to pore over glossy magazines such as Cosmo or Hello! to devour and absorb what the celebrities are wearing, what their homes look like and so on, while attempting to emulate them. And yet, there is something about social media (despite its uses) which is more troubling and which nags at me constantly. That ‘something’ is that, unlike a magazine which we can look at for a while but then toss aside, FB, Instagram, TikTok etc are so pervasive and entangle us so stealthily in their tantalising tentacles; they are so readily accessible and simply there, burning a hole in our pocket, that it takes great restraint to cut down on checking these various apps. It becomes, quite simply, an obsession.

In my constant attempt to cut down on my own addiction, I try to take various measures: I avoid looking at my phone before bedtime and leave it in another room, I try to put it away while socialising and so on. One hack I haven’t quite yet managed to adopt is to do other things for the first hour on waking up rather than automatically reaching for my lifeline (i.e. my phone). Like a smoker whose fingers itch for his first hit of nicotine for the day, it is not an easy habit to overcome. I suppose I could delete all my social media apps from my phone… but let’s not go crazy just yet.

The most disquieting aspect of social media is that comparisons are inevitable. It is difficult to escape the feeling that one’s life somehow doesn’t measure up. More worryingly, that sense of inadequacy and dis-satisfaction is now no longer restricted to when one sees glamorous celebrities in magazines, but these days also extends to ordinary people like us. It is one thing to rationalise that we cannot possibly live Gwyneth Paltrow’s painstakingly curated life – because her wealth and fame put her out of our league. But it’s another thing to see the lifestyle of those we know and wonder if our own lives are yawningly boring and tedious in comparison.

Similarly, the perfect, flawless selfies which are often posted online can make you feel like going back to bed and pulling the duvet over your head. If you take the social media portrayal of what people’s lives are like at face value, it can be an easy downward spiral to hating everything about one’s own life, one’s looks, one’s relationships…one’s very existence. It is this which I find so disquieting about social media and why we need to step away from it on a regular basis.

From only being fed news which is tailored according to an algorithm (which means our perspective becomes more and more insular and narrow-minded) to only interacting with FB ‘friends’ online (rather than fostering face-to-face relationships which can be messy and complicated, but which teach us vital inter-personal skills), social media has proved to be the ultimate double-edged sword. We are at risk of being simultaneously connected and yet so dismally disconnected from other human beings, with all their failings and imperfections…after all, it is real life which gives us substance and depth, by learning to tolerate different opinions and characters, rather than these two-dimensional fake versions of ourselves.

And don’t even get me started on those who “talk” constantly to AI, and have created an AI friend – now if that is not scary and detached from reality, I don’t know what is.

My hope for 2026 is that more people cut back on their screen time (myself included) so that we can get back to living our real lives: raw, unfiltered, warts and all, with no camera phone in sight.