If journalist and novelist Yomi Adegoke had to diagnose the internet with an illness, she wouldn’t be able to give it a name. “Is there a medical term with the word toxicity in it?” she says, laughing. “I can’t diagnose the internet with an illness, because in my mind, it’s social media that has an illness. I say this as someone who loves social media and wouldn’t have this career without it. It brings so much value: I’ve met some incredible people online, made friends and have had some amazing experiences too. But in its current iteration, it’s not sustainable. Mob mentality is a real thing. If the internet gods ordained that you are the main character of Twitter today, there’s only so much you can do to mitigate it.”
The 31-year-old, from Croydon, south London, has a love-hate relationship with social media, which is why she changed the way she used it a couple of years ago. “I [now] use every platform like it’s LinkedIn,” she admits. “I don’t tweet my opinions as much as I would – if you want to read my opinions, you can read them in an article. I’m a lot more guarded. The more you give to social media, the more people expect.”
