The Internet Is Loud Until You Ask A Question

Things are really ramping up in the second semester of year two. I’ve completed two out of seven pieces of coursework across three modules so far. They’re going. Yes, they’re going.

I’m doing alright, broadly speaking. But there is one thing I can’t quite get my head around, and it’s really starting to make my head itch.

The world, it turns out, is aggressively loud. Toxically so. Until you ask it a question.

The moment you actually want an answer, particularly online, the noise disappears. Suddenly it’s nothing but crickets and cobwebs.

In public it’s slightly different. Although you still have to contend with hordes of microphone-waving social media characters who will do just about anything to elicit a reaction from unsuspecting people simply trying to go about their day. As a journalism student, I suppose I’m not entirely different. Although I’d like to think I’m slightly less likely to leap out from behind a bush with a microphone.

This is more observation than complaint. When I ask questions in public, I can usually get the content I need fairly quickly. But online the silence is striking. It feels almost paradoxical.

Unsolicited opinions find their way everywhere. People happily pile into someone’s moment of celebration, a post about their job, or an update from their day, offering views nobody asked for. Yet when a question is asked directly, tumbleweed rolls gently across the floor.

At the moment my questions are fairly simple ones. I’m asking whether anyone has experienced something spooky in London while exploring the capital. I’m also asking people what the last thing they did for fun was, whether it felt worth the money, and what their markers are for a successful day out.

Nice, open questions. Easy ones, really.

Yet online, the response is… nothing.

I don’t sit around waiting for replies on social media, and I’m fairly outgoing in the real world, but it’s still something I genuinely can’t get my head around.

It does send the ADHD and bipolar into a slightly chaotic spiral. I start thinking I need to do more, see more, record more, be more active, until I’ve somehow created the perfect video or mastered the perfect question.

But the reality is that this part isn’t mine to control.

I can absolutely make better videos. I can ask questions until the cows come home. But that doesn’t necessarily mean anyone is going to answer them.