Kate Hawkesby: I think Threads is targeted to Millennials - they're welcome to it

So more than a hundred million users have signed up for Meta's new Threads platform - making it the fastest growing online platform in history. Can you believe that? How do more than a hundred million people still have so much to say that they need to say it on a whole new platform? It was set up to rival Twitter; it's kind of a Twitter 2.0 but they’re trying to make it ‘kind’, they say. Clearly they don’t understand how the internet works. Anything that even for one moment purports to be ‘kind’ is corrupted eventually - the internet is just not a ‘kind’ place. Even Instagram, which started out as the least nasty of all the social media platforms, still has keyboard warriors coming for you, still has trolls lining up in your DM’s to ask if you were wearing a seatbelt in that last video, or if you really should let your children walk around without shoes on. But with the proliferation of platforms, there are just more outlets for more people to say more stuff - most of which is either irrelevant or of no importance to your life whatsoever. It truly is the domain of bored people and stalkers. Or influencers. Or comedians. Or those with an agenda. You go into it knowing all that and taking it for what it is surely? But I just don’t know why we need more of it? It's like streaming services these days too, are we not so awash with content now that it’s actually just a turn off? Too much of everything? At a time when we are supposedly meant to be getting back to nature and sunlight and less screen time and less stress? Are we not in the process of eating ourselves here? The other thing that gets me about Threads is because it’s linked to your Instagram, apparently once you get it you can’t delete it, without deleting your whole Instagram. So they’ve got you. I was listening to a podcast the other day by a Guru out of India who was saying the world now is just full of expression, rather than perception. We don’t listen anymore, we don’t tune in to what’s really happening, we don’t use perception to enhance our lives, because these days there are so many platforms to express ourselves that we’re just busy expressing all the time. Espousing our opinions, expressing our beliefs and spewing outwardly so much that we take nothing in. We are hungry for more platforms to express more of our views. More social media platforms, more podcasts, more, more, more. But the point he makes is, when we’re so busy all the time expressing, when are we stopping to listen? And if we’re not stopping to listen, then when do we learn? How much of what is being ‘expressed’ is just regurgitated ignorance? There’s a growth in ‘silent’ retreats these days. People are paying to go somewhere and just shut up. They’re paying to stop the noise. There is so much expression now that people actually pay to get away from it. So I look at the addition of Threads to our lives with a certain level of cynicism. I’m not saying I won’t be suckered into it, eventually, but I happily exist without Twitter, Facebook and TikTok, so maybe not. Then again I’m not the target market. I think it’s for Millennials. And you know what? They’re welcome to it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.