It Seems A Really Easy ‘Fight’ To Win, To Me…

I am uneasily aware that around this time last year I wrote that my drive to acquire material things had somewhat subsided: I was older and wiser, had everything I needed, was repelled by the sheer volume of stuff in the world, blah blah blah. Unfortunately, the internet seemingly viewed that as fighting talk, an impossible-to-turn-down challenge, and in recent months I have once more found myself wanting stuff. Lots of stuff.

I suppose you've not considered putting the phone or tablet down?

It’s not surprising perhaps – stuff is everywhere, whispering, or shouting, to us from every screen we stare at. “The constant stream of ads on Instagram is exhausting,” said my best friend gloomily just last week, and she’s right: my eyes are constantly assaulted with offers of miracle goop for my mature skin, wellness gadgetry, expensive knitwear and greenwashed “disruptors” of almost everything. I just spent a minute scrolling and was offered, in quick succession, a “calfPRO” (no idea, alarming), kombucha, cleanser, an eco frying pan, “reminiscent of Phoebe Philo-era Celine” jumpers and, bafflingly, Canadian sea urchins.

That seems a rather odd selection of targeted ads. 

In this newly lawless age for social media there are bigger problems than the relentless onslaught of targeted ads, but in addition to the urgent upskilling in critical reading the world needs, we need to work out how to fight back against all the stuff the internet wants us to buy.

I already have - ignore them and scroll past.  

I’ve been trying to deinfluence myself in recent weeks and it’s quite the battle – I am weak-willed and made stupider by the minute by internet nonsense, and the algorithm is tireless. But I have a secret weapon: I know my craven, ridiculous desires intimately, which helps me shout them down. Now when tempted, that’s exactly what I do.

There! Wasn't so hard after all, was it?