The Unpickable Pick-Mes And “Chronically Online”

We know this is bad, but it seems to be getting worse.

Around 2012, when I was living in a 1-BR apartment in Queens with my ex-wife (then girlfriend/fiancee), I responded to Facebook comments and posts a lot, so people used to tell me I was “online too much,” which is a precursor to the new idea of being “chronically online,” which I also believe is now the title of a book. Looking back, I was indeed very much online, and often saying stupid stuff while buzzed. With the benefit of hindsight and self-awareness and more than a decade of history, I was probably doing it because I was sad and felt behind in my life. My dream job forever was ESPN; I got that, and was good at it, but over time I underperformed and had bad bosses and had since left it. Most of my friends were already having kids. I didn’t have a ton of “in-person” friends, although I had one good neighborhood group through my then-partner’s college friends. I just felt like I was lacking community and purpose, so I tried to find a saccharine backdoor, which was Facebook.

Now Facebook is significantly less relevant, but we’re even more chronically online. These days the main form seems to be TikTok, although I think Instagram is still hanging in there for a certain subset. That’s funny, because Instagram is essentially a pointless place for…