What was the final straw that made your finger reach for the mute button? Was it the Instagram Story marking 100 days since your friend’s wedding (when they’d already posted consistently about it on every one of those 100 days)? The old colleague sharing yet another in-depth breakdown of their latest marathon time? A holiday humblebrag from the university acquaintance who seems somehow to have accrued a budget and an annual leave allowance to rival Dua Lipa?
We may not like to admit it, but for many of us, hitting the mute function on social media and on messaging platforms has become habitual: according to a survey from YouGov, 53 per cent of us have indulged in it. Compared to unfollowing someone, and thus unsubscribing from their updates in perpetuity, or leaving a WhatsApp chat in a fit of pique, it feels like a more manageable middle ground. You don’t have to roll their eyes at every fresh dispatch from their life, but you don’t have to cut them off entirely either.
