‘The casual cruelty’: Social media FOMO spawned murder mystery

Social media throws up horrors, lifelines and FOMO, says a former journalist who has seen the worst of it up close. Her experience is at the heart of a new murder-mystery.

Several years ago, a strange idea came to me for a story about a woman trapped in her most ‘liked’ Instagram post – a small-town mystery but with a twist.

That idea became my new novel, The Last Illusion of Paige White: a book very much inspired by my own complicated feelings toward social media.

The FOMO and the comparison.

The way it’s sometimes so hard to get off.

Reaching for the phone without even thinking about it – an itch the subconscious needs to scratch.

‘Social media is both beautiful and ugly’ … Vanessa McCausland. Picture: Katie Kaars

Sometimes I find myself on there while watching TV or mid-conversation – not even registering the moment I picked up my phone.

At the same time, Instagram is where I’ve found an entire community of writers, authors, readers and book lovers to whom I feel incredibly connected and grateful. It has both expanded and shrunk my world.

In the novel, Paige White’s body is found in a lake after she posts a haunting picture on Instagram. I wanted to express, through a woman stuck in a torturous and yet endlessly beautiful ‘beyond’, the suffocation that can come with watching seemingly perfect lives scroll by.

As I said, it’s complicated.

The beauty of fiction is that you can explore these grey areas. Social media is both beautiful and ugly. It brings people together and it also creates isolation. I wanted to delve into these themes deeply.

‘What hope is there for our children, whose brains are being rewired by Snapchat and TikTok?’ … Australian students look at their phones in November 2024.

For years I worked as a newspaper journalist (which inspired the character of Jane, a journalist drawn home to the lake to investigate her friend Paige’s death). But it was my brief time working as a social media editor that disturbed me. The casual cruelty. The things people wrote to each other under the cover of anonymity – were shocking. It made me wonder – is social media making humans crueller, or simply uncovering our base instincts? These were some of the ideas I interrogate in my novel.

I also explore the way the ‘self’ is framed online. The push and pull of authenticity vs. portraying our lives as better than they are. And the idea that so often people are not who they pretend to be. Paige White had an online stalker, and her real life was not the glossy perfection reflected in her photos.

I know I’m not the only one struggling with these complicated feelings. I have a 14-year-old daughter. I talk to other parents. We all have rolling arguments with our kids over screen time.

We’re just starting to understand the negative psychological effects of this addiction. I think we can all feel that it’s harder to concentrate. We know that it’s not doing our mental health any favours. To say nothing of the larger social and political impacts of being fed the same information by the algorithm. And if we as adults are addicted, our viewpoints siloed, what hope is there for our children, whose brains are being rewired by Snapchat and TikTok?

‘How many of these stories do we have to witness before action is taken as a society?’ … the Unplug 24 logo.

It surprises me that it’s taken this long to be having this conversation. At the time of writing the government is pushing through legislation for a minimum age of sixteen for social media use, addressing what has been called a generational crisis.

The recent Unplug 24 campaign – a challenge to get off social media for 24 hours on October 24 – served as a reminder of the importance of balancing our real and online lives. It has a tragic origin story. Mac Holdsworth, 16, took his life after a devastating social media humiliation, and his dad wanted a day to memorialise his son. How many of these stories do we have to witness before action is taken as a society? Because that’s what it needs to be. Social media is how kids relate now. Taking away the medium isn’t simple because it takes away their social interaction. It has to be bigger than one kid and one nagging parent.

A study by Australian National Youth Mental Health Foundation, Headspace, found that one in three young people experienced problematic social media use. Half of young people surveyed wanted to disconnect from social media, but the feeling of missing out was stopping them, with nearly a third feeling the pressure to keep up with everything.

So, what happens when you do get off? I’ve been on holiday where I’ve consciously switched off, and I feel a shift. A slowing down of the racing mind. Less negative self-talk. Boredom, yes. Remember that? You might even get through a whole TV episode, or finish a newspaper article … without checking your phone.

‘A strange idea came to me for a story’ … The Last Illusion of Paige White by Vanessa McCausland

The Last Illusion of Paige White by Vanessa McCausland will be published by HarperCollins on December 4 and is available to pre-order now. If you feel comfortable with social media use, you can discuss all things books at The Sunday Book Club group on Facebook.

Originally published as ‘The casual cruelty’: Social media FOMO spawned murder mystery