The antisocial author

Viewers of Netflix’s recent documentary "The Social Dilemma" will now know, more acutely than ever, the impact that platforms like Twitter and Instagram are having on our lives, including unprecedented rises in pre-teen suicides and self-harm admissions to hospital.

Hearing about addictive, divisive quirks that had been designed to deliberately target our mental health, I was one of those moved to terminate my accounts. Only, when I began the process, I felt a sickening jolt: as an author with a paperback on the way, could clicking ‘deactivate’ kill my fledgling career?