I 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 authoritatively delivered life advice dominates what I see online, from Substack (the online home of cosy, bookish elders) to TikTok (the opposite). It’s not just my algorithm or demographic: men, young people, pregnant people and new parents all get inundated with advice, albeit with different slants.
I sort of admire the confidence it must take to tell people what to do. I can barely muster a tentative suggestion of what to have for dinner (crisps?). But it also makes me pine for the internet before everything was a bossy, bullet-pointed self-optimisation plan; for the gentler days of cat memes and rambling blog posts about strangers’ marital problems.
Of course, no one is forcing me to consume this content, to roll my eyes at another earnest reel or wrathfully scroll through 1,000 words telling me to “prioritise rest”. But I’m a sucker for it, which is exactly why it’s everywhere: it gets us “engaging” and consuming. It’s undeniably appealing to be told how to live your life when you’re flailing, failing and bewildered (and aren’t we all?). Unfortunately, the only thing I’ve realised from endlessly clicking is that the cure for my confusion will not come from content creators. Uh oh – did I just offer “things I’ve learned” advice?
• Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
