I can tell, usually within a few minutes of meeting them, who’s really into social media.

There’s a little bit of frenetic emotional dysregulation, and then they say the weirdest stuff to me.

I don’t think you could have made a similar argument about heavy trash tv watchers. They may have had less to talk about, you may have found them less interesting, but it didn’t literally alter their personalities.

We have a big problem.

I feel called out as one of them. I definitely overextend in terms of internet references if I'm anxious to try to catch something the other person is interested in. Among many "online" people, memes are basically a form of in-group signaling at this point to indicate you have a similar shape of humor, quirks, shared fandoms, and values (albeit often surface level). I'm reminded of the quote about fandoms by Roger Ebert [0]. I would say it's a similar tendency to use online references as a way to skirt social awkwardness and establish some commonality.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1192222-a-lot-of-fans-are-b...

Before social media I remember people who had entire conversations just quoting tv shows, movies, and commercials. Which shows they quoted was their personality.

I think it is much worse with social media, the content is a lot more niche and the algorithms a lot more addictive.

It's not so much the weird stuff they say, I think that is fairly normal, especially the younger you go. It's the inability to do anything in person without talking constant phone breaks that I find most worrying.

I would also add that having this kind of detection superpower probably requires the observer to be a social media addict too (low-key).

Do you have examples of what weird stuff they would say? Im having a hard time imagining what you mean exactly.

Do you have examples? Asking for a friend.

ok boomer