HLD 433

3 April 2023

Like many of my generation, I frequently roll my eyes a little at the attachment younger generations have to social media. Sure, people like me don’t mind a little bit of Facebook interaction – lets face it, it’s a handy calendar device to remind you when birthdays happen, an ideal postcard substitute when you’re on holidays, and lets the world know when my sister-in-law starts or finishes a jigsaw.

But I’m not devoted to social media. I do have instagram and the twit one, but they are very dusty icons on my phone. So rarely used that if it wasn’t for my device remembering my passwords, I suspect they would be have to be deleted when I tried to log on next time.

But I know enough younger types to know that facebook is for old people, and that Instagram and TikTok are where it all happens. I’m sure there are a lot of different sorts of social media type things I’m totally unaware of, and frankly I’m more than ok with that.

But, and this may come as a shock to the TikTokkers out there electronically screaming “Look at me!”, but humans are not taking the lead in this fascination with social media.

It’s not new. It’s been around for centuries. Even longer than I’ve been on the earth.

My dog has three walks a day. The last one, just before bedtime, so purely a draining exercise to make sure she can make it through the night. The afternoon one is a run and play with her friends time – her friends being any dog at the dog park while we are there.

But her morning walk???? That’s social media in its finest.

As a bypasser mentioned to me, while I was standing around waiting for my dog to sniff and pee on the 256th spot of interest this morning, I don’t get anywhere fast during this walk.

She has to check every post. 

Sometimes, for a dog, a post isn’t a post. Not an electronic media post, nor a fence post.

Dogs post their information on all sorts of places – piles of leaves, footpaths, shrubs, over other dog’s poo, and especially, of course – trees. My dog is of a small stature, and it frustrates her no end when taller dogs post their information in a place inaccessible to her.

It occurred to me that my dog is just checking her social media on our morning walks. She’s effectively finding out from other dogs what they’ve been up to, how frequently they post information, and is providing a ‘like’, or a ‘thumbs up’ to their post.

There must be occasions where there is no post to read, and in this instance she likes to be a bit of a trend setter and make a post so others can spend some time looking at this point of interest. And in her walk the following day, she can track her ‘likes’ to see if it was a popular opinion.

I also love the irony that I’m posting here about her posting.

I didn’t pee on the computer though.

Honest.