As the UK spent countless hours online during lockdown, how much has it changed us?
have tried to make the counter argument, highlighting social media's role in democratising knowledge about Covid-19.Iain Dale, a Conservative author and broadcaster, was a pioneering political blogger who did as much as anyone to get Westminster online, but he hasAt time of writing, the LBC Radio presenter has 243,600 followers on Twitter, but he says: "If I wasn't doing the job that I do, I think I would come off it".
Before the pandemic, he says, "you had Brexit and before that there were plenty of other things that got people going. I'm not actually sure that the pandemic was actually worse than Brexit. Points in Brexit, whatever side you were on, it was impossible to have reasoned debate". "People who were probably just genuinely angry about something, but would have gone on with their every day lives, were now really angry but had four hours a day to just vent"."People always hunt in a pack on social media" to find something that is a topic of the day and feel as though they have to "rush in and join in and give that person a kicking, that was something I definitely noticed as a trend".
But the debate about whether social media is good or bad for democracy can feel increasingly irrelevant, because it is here to stay.