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Fellow imbibers, you know the feeling. The morning after the night before. ‘OK, it was good fun but did I have to binge so much?’
When the hangover is particularly bad, the hair of the dog feels like the best, nay only cure. Or so we convince ourselves. And sometimes this does indeed do the trick, mentally at least. A few more doses of the poison that had done the initial damage, some rest and we’re our regular selves again. Until the next time.
Sobering thought
Anecdotally speaking — and from the odd personal experience (I’m usually good at not going over my limit these days) — hangovers tend to be worse the older one gets, from roughly mid-30s onwards. Equally worse is the beer blues, that uncomfortable feeling of self-reproach, when one has drunk to excess.
What often follows is a determination to go sober for a time. Some manage to do this for weeks or even months, especially if their last booze session ended badly. Others kick the habit completely.
I wouldn’t mind going months without beer. My problem — or my excuse, if you will — is my unsettled lifestyle together with the country I’m in. Drinking out in standard tiendas in Colombia is one of the cheapest socialising pursuits on offer.
So come 6 or 7 o’clock of an evening the temptation for some tienda-beer time is strong. If only there were decent, more readily available zero-alcohol brews in such tiendas. Would I drink them, though? Is it the alcohol-fuelled sensation I’m after or merely the social setting?
‘Early social media use was like downing Jägerbombs in the nightclub following an already heavy evening in the pub. It usually led to sloppy public displays of affection or ill-advised encounters of the brutish kind.’
Whatever the case, I’ve been more conscious of my Colombian beer consumption of late and have tried to cut back. (Again, I say Colombia because the last time I was back in Ireland I quite easily went weeks without any alcohol. Largely for the price reason already mentioned, I find it harder to not drink in these parts. Also, in Ireland I tend to have more non-beer-related activities with which to occupy my time.)
In fairness, I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with drinking, yet I feel I’m now more sincere, if not too successful, in my efforts to drink less. That I’ve just entered my 40s plays a part in this, no doubt. I may be becoming slightly more sensible. That’s the hope.
Meta monsters
I get the same vibe shift — to use the phrase of the current zeitgeist — in not only my relationship with social media but also that of many other people. It’s like there’s a collective middle-aged-style questioning of our online behaviour, particularly with what I consider to be the more bathetic and vain platforms, Facebook and Instagram.
(Those Meta monsters are akin to cheesy daytime TV, dealing in lifestyle affairs, albeit Instagram does have a worrying mild-porn side to it. Elon Musk’s X is of the late-night, heated-political-debate variety, swinging from the astute to the absurd. In case you’re wondering, I’m not on TikTok and have no intentions of doing so. Ditto with Bluesky.)
In the early days of interactive intoxication, the average Facebook/Instagram user i.e. one whose content-sharing is not done with the aim of generating income either directly or indirectly, went on a post blitz. This appears to have waned of late. Many are now adopting a more considered approach.
In revelling terms, social media use fifteen or so years ago was like downing Jägerbombs in the nightclub following an already heavy evening in the pub. It usually led to sloppy public displays of affection or ill-advised encounters of the brutish kind. Or sometimes both. These days, it’s more in the style of a quiet drink or two at the local. A reserved affair.
I can imagine those who follow me on Facebook or Instagram reviewing my recent activity and thinking that I’m still in the blitz phase.
In my defence, the chief reason I continue to use social media is to share the content I create, hoping — in vain — to drive more traffic to my blog, as well as to my Spotify and YouTube channels.
‘They get their kicks via different interactive engagements, similar to Ireland’s Zoomers cosying up to cocaine as they down less alcohol.’
Even with posts that aren’t directly linked to my online material, the idea is that more interaction is better than the opposite in this gig. Or, as I’m wont to say, it’s better to be a known loser than an unknown one.
I know, I know, one can reasonably ask what’s the point when, after over thirteen years, all my blogs, vlogs and podcasts haven’t returned me even a penny in income. I could waste time on worse things, though, couldn’t I? The other side to this, of course, is that I could spend my time on more wholesome pursuits.
Poisoned posting
What’s more, alongside the changes in netizens’ interactions with social media, the platforms themselves have evolved as both they and regulators try to find safer ways to operate. This evolution has further boosted the voice and influence of the haves while simultaneously weakening more so the role of the have-nots.
This is the exact opposite of the fanciful vision that Facebook et al. had at their inception. Aiming to empower the proles has merely resulted in giving greater power to the plutocrats. Plus ça change.
Added to this, the younger generations who grew up with social media are less hung-up about it all. In the same way that Gen Z — or Zoomers, as they’re also called — in some high-income nations are drinking less alcohol compared to their predecessors, these younger folk are more inclined to be voyeurs rather than active participants on Facebook and Instagram.
This is not to say that theirs is a healthier way. It’s just that they tend to get their kicks via different interactive engagements, similar to Ireland’s Zoomers cosying up to cocaine as they down less alcohol. Or, more positively, as has been suggested elsewhere, they use Facebook less as a platform to share personal moments and to socialise virtually than as a source of gathering and sharing information via groups and suchlike.
So as we older generations rethink our relationship with social media, it needn’t be a case of complete abstinence. Then again, just as health experts advise about alcohol, the safest amount of online socialising might be zero. And if forced to continue with just one of the two poisons, I’d opt for the liquid kind.
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