On Wednesday, my therapist set me a task: to record every time I logged on to Twitter, what I posted, and how I felt in the process. This embarrassing piece of homework was in response to an impassioned rant I’d embarked on, during our session. “Everyone just keeps trumpeting their opinions like they know anything,” I said, pausing before admitting that my anger was also drawn from frustration at my own posting behaviour. “Why can’t I stop wading in?”
It’s a question I think many will be asking themselves. As Russian tanks began to roll across Ukrainian borders, so too began the real-time reactions. It was to be expected; for the roughly 53 million social media users in the UK, it is hardly unfamiliar in 2022 to see reality filtered through Twitter timelines and Instagram feeds. Despite what some have claimed, the conflict is not even close to being the “first social media war” . But it is the first of this scale on the back doorstep of the west. For many millions in the UK, the war feels closer to home, both in terms of geography and the online spaces they inhabit, a fact disappointingly evidenced by broadcasters drawing oafish comparisons between the shock of combat in “civilised” Europe v conflicts in the “developing world”.
