The last time I saw Sonny, a couple of months ago, I told him to stop looking at girls with long fake nails on Instagram because they were emulating porn stars. He said I was nail-shaming them. He told me his friend pressed the wrong button on a vending machine in America and got the morning-after pill instead of a drink, so what did I have to teach him? People are depressed about the totalitarian state we’re heading towards – a world where our internet use will be restricted to viewing the shiny, ham-like faces of our unelected leaders – but at least it will save the kids from porn. Every cloud.

I’ve told Kelly that we have to respect social media more than the younger generations because we’re not digital natives. We were raised in print. This shift has been a major cultural and psychological upheaval in our lifetimes. We didn’t get email until we were at university. The internet can throw some curveballs. I once ordered a bureau off eBay and when it arrived it was a miniature one, for a doll’s house. I thought it was a bargain at £1.99. Plus, we weren’t brought up natural broadcasters. We’ve had to catch up, and too quickly. I remember that move towards daily (hourly; constant) documentation. Years ago a friend drove me mad on a hike, stopping to take photos all the time for her Facebook. I was very frustrated, as I wanted to keep walking. It was like being in a constantly stalling car. Now, I’d be the one scrambling to the nearest cliff face for a signal.

Speaking of which.

It’s time to bite the bullet. I add a last-minute impulse hashtag. Really going now!

#shameabouttheservice

I post the picture. The waiting begins. It’s like that conundrum of the tree falling in the empty forest. Does it make a sound if there’s no one there? If you put something on social media and no one likes it, do you even exist? I have calculated that with my number of followers I can measure a successful post on the basis of approximately ten likes per minute. Still, there’s no formula for it – I’ve tried everything. One time I even arranged a day trip to Heptonstall to photograph Sylvia Plath’s grave (literary, tragic, it ticked so many boxes!) and so many people lit their little hearts for it that it was worth the £100 train fare. I used to do things for their own sake, but now grammability is a defining factor.

We’re almost at a minute and no—