Big Click Energy
How long are you spending online each day?
Go on, be honest.
Discounting work commitments, how’s your phone usage going? How many hours have you wasted sat staring at that screen?
Do notifications still give you a tiny buzz of excitement? Or are they filling you with dread…? Are you playing whack-a-mole with emails or are you taking your incoming stream with cheerful ease?
We are all modern slaves to the black mirror. Our phones are not just a part of our everyday, they are intrinsic to our day-to-day wants and needs. Without that little six-inch rectangle of metals and plastic we are more than lost, we are distraught.
Please don’t think that I am preaching — I am in the same boat, with no paddle. Without my phone I am lost child running between the supermarket aisles looking for my mother. It is sad, but a true fact. Last week I had a notification saying my screen time was down 25% to an average of 6 hours a day. Shameful. And what was I doing? Zero. Nada. Squat all. Apart from an endless loop of WhatsApp, Instagram, Ebay, Coinbase, Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, The Times, Reddit, TikTok, Hinge, ScrabbleGo, Youtube, Spotify and Podcasts. Oh, and emails. Rinse and repeat. Bar a couple of in-real-life chores, essentially, I did sweet fuck all online. And I doubt I am alone. I get lost in the carousel of information, feverishly picking up my phone as soon as it cheeps to inform of new content. We could blame the third lockdown, but it’s just a feeble excuse.
Was it merely a bad week filled with boredom? What is urging me tap, swipe and share every day? It is ‘Big Click Energy’ — and I’m penning the title now before it gets stolen by a smarter brain that can explain it better. Big media has spent years and years of development to retain your interest, the editing of content, creating eye grabbing headlines, click bait on tap, the side bar of shame, newsreels and sound bites. We are tuned in to snap up and suck on information they serve like cheap sweets. And these apps and channels are all fighting for our attention, luring our eyeballs with bleeps and flashes to funnel through and get lost in the vortex of the archives within their sites.
If you haven’t watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix, you should. It’s a scary thought to see the hyper normalisation of social media within our lives and how it is affecting us deeply and will influence us for years to come. I’m addicted. I have been for years, from Bebo to Clubhouse, I’ve been around from the start and I will proudly continue to use these platforms for the greater good. Or the guise of goodness at the very least. But in reality, I’m there for the gossip, the memes, the shares, the smirks, the love and the loss. There are thousands of lines of communication from across the world running directly through my phone and swooping into my brain. I’m one swipe away from digital ecstasy of the next mouth drop ‘oh my god you gotta see this’ moment. The information whipping around is overwhelming and at times I sincerely enjoy every moment. Other times, my eyes are burnt out and tired, my brain soggy with chaotic pointlessness.
But ultimately, I just get a kick out of posting my thoughts. Not for the likes or the ego fuelling, but for the feeling of unfiltered expression. It feels good to release and get my words out there, but is it because I am in a shy search for my own Big Click Energy?
Big Click Energy is when someone proudly posts personal content online with the intension of drawing as much engagement from the wider public as possible. Captain Tom had Big Click Energy; Clarkson has Big Click Energy too. The woman I saw on the news that made her 9-year-old son run a marathon for charity so she could promote her fitness business and get on national television has it too. Most of your newsfeed has it, and you do too.
Big Click Energy can be good, bad, love or hate. It can be Piers Morgan, the Mars landing or a new flavour of your favourite munchies. It can be a promotion for a new Louis Theroux podcast or a new job post boast. It can be absolutely anything, so long as the content hits home and makes the viewer want to click and discover more. Anyone can possess it, from Trisha down the local talking of her kid’s latest achievements or Brian throwing shapes on Instagram. This is not just limited to news outlets, influencers and tabloids. You don’t have to go viral to command this elusive big click energy.
So now we know what it is, what do we do with this information?
We need to be aware — we need to take breaks — we need to have a rest and recoup the hours spent drooling during screen time. We need to remember what these platforms were built to achieve in the first place — to connect one another — to find similarities and common loves with people from around the world. It is idealistic but true. With that in mind, we need to be honest with what we post, ensuring that every piece of content comes from a place of honesty. Keep the posts pure, and you find your audience. Or more to the point, the audience will find you and this elusive big click energy will shine from your screen.
It is past the dawn and way into the late morning of a new digital age. These apps and platforms are here to stay. They are a source of endless mind bending information, our photos and profiles draw a picture of our personalities, whether we like it or not. There will be no hiding from it — especially as we come out of the pandemic, skipping past the era of fake news and falling into your new zoom meeting. Working from home has now been battered into us. It can be done mainly because employers are now a little more trusting of our work schedule outside of the office. The world has dramatically changed. And if we are not careful, it won’t be for the better. If we do not realise the dangers of too much time online we will soon become a race of slack jawed lazy blob people who are unable to communicate in person, preferring emojis and avatars.
Life is no longer meta. It is digitised and reborn online. Without human interaction, clear communication online and turning the black mirror off more often than not, our world will become an even darker, and lonelier place.
