Last Tuesday I’m sitting across from my friend Sarah at Caribou, nodding along like I’m hearing about her job interview for the first time. Meanwhile, I’d already Google Street Viewed her potential commute, looked up the hiring manager on LinkedIn, and had a whole conversation with Rob about whether the company parking situation looked adequate based on the photos she’d posted from interview day. I even checked the bus routes, you know, in case she asked my opinion about public transit options. She didn’t ask, but I was prepared.
This is what passes for friendship now – performing surprise about information I consumed three days earlier while lying in bed at midnight, scrolling through someone else’s curated life updates. Sarah’s telling me about the company culture and I’m sitting there going “Oh really?” when I’d already seen the office tour she posted, read the Glassdoor reviews, and formed opinions about their break room setup. I’m basically a private investigator who pretends to be shocked by her own findings.
The worst part? I used to work in tech. Spent five years at a major company helping design the exact algorithms that make this behavior so easy. We’d sit in those sterile conference rooms celebrating engagement metrics, thrilled that users were spending more time clicking through friends’ profiles. What we didn’t discuss was how we were systematically destroying the art of actual conversation. Nobody mentioned that we were creating a world where “catching up” became an elaborate performance between two people who’d already consumed each other’s life updates through a screen.
I remember when learning about someone’s vacation actually required them to tell you about it. When hearing about a friend’s breakup was genuinely surprising instead of something you’d already analyzed through the absence of couple photos and the sudden increase in inspirational quotes about independence. We used to have to care enough about someone to call them if we wanted details about their lives. Now I know my high school friend’s dog has hip problems and I haven’t spoken to her in three years.
My colleague posted about her mom being in the hospital at 2 AM last week – one of those vulnerable, raw posts people share when they can’t sleep and need connection. By morning I knew the whole situation, felt genuinely concerned, and had already mentally composed supportive messages. Then she mentioned it during our team meeting, presenting it as new information, and I had to act like I was hearing it for the first time. “Oh no, I’m so sorry, how is she doing?” when I’d already seen the follow-up post from that morning saying mom was stable.
I’ve developed this weird system of rules for navigating these conversations, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. There’s the three-day rule – if someone posted it more than seventy-two hours ago, it’s safer to acknowledge you saw it. “Oh right, I think I saw something about that on Facebook.” Then there’s engagement accountability – only reference posts you actually liked or commented on, because that creates a paper trail proving you saw it legitimately. Detail discipline is huge too – never mention specifics that weren’t directly in the post. If I notice the brand of coffee maker in the background of someone’s kitchen renovation photos, that’s between me and my insomnia scrolling.
The scroll-back limit is probably the most important rule. Acknowledging something that would require extensive scrolling to find is basically admitting to digital stalking. “Love what you did with your hair” is fine if they posted about a haircut yesterday. Mentioning the highlights they got in 2019 raises uncomfortable questions about my browsing habits. Mutual friend information creates another layer of complexity – “Sarah mentioned your promotion” sounds natural and social. “I noticed you were wearing an engagement ring in the background of Sarah’s birthday post” sounds like evidence for a restraining order.
The thing is, we’re all doing this to each other. The same friend whose Instagram stories I’m analyzing at midnight is probably doing the same thing to mine. We’ve created this mutual surveillance system and then agreed to pretend it doesn’t exist. Emma caught me doing this last month – I was asking her about her friend’s family vacation while clearly already knowing they’d gone to Florida based on her social media posts. She looked at me like I was insane and said “Mom, you obviously already saw Jenna’s posts, why are you pretending?” Out of the mouths of babes, honestly.
Last week I posted a photo of my coffee and the book I was reading – just a casual morning shot. Within an hour, three friends had liked it. The next day, one of them texts asking how I’m liking the book, acting like she just noticed I was reading it. She couldn’t maintain eye contact during the conversation, probably because she was performing the same fake surprise I’ve perfected over the years. We both knew exactly what was happening but played along anyway.
There’s something deeply unsettling about relationships built on this foundation of surveillance and performance. We’re losing the genuine surprise that comes with actual life updates, replacing it with these carefully choreographed conversations where both people are pretending not to know information they’ve already consumed. I watch my students doing this too – they’ll discuss someone’s TikTok at lunch while pretending they just happened to stumble across it, when really they’d been watching that person’s content for weeks.
Sometimes I miss when keeping up with someone’s life required actual effort proportional to how much you cared about them. If you wanted to know what was happening with an old friend, you had to call them or make plans to meet up. The barrier to information meant that staying updated was intentional, not just the result of mindless scrolling through an algorithmic feed designed to keep you engaged.
Now we have constant access to information we never asked for, creating this weird obligation to care about everyone’s life updates while pretending we haven’t seen them. I know my former coworker’s kid started kindergarten, my neighbor got a new car, and my college roommate is thinking about moving to Colorado – specifically Boulder, based on the hiking groups and real estate pages he’s been liking, though I’ll act shocked when he tells me and ask “where abouts?” with a completely straight face.
The performance exhausts me, but I can’t seem to stop participating. Maybe it’s because breaking the illusion feels too awkward, or maybe because admitting to digital stalking makes the behavior seem more invasive than it actually is. Either way, I keep nodding along to stories I’ve already read, asking follow-up questions about details I learned through late-night scrolling, and acting surprised by information that’s been sitting in my brain for days.
Rob thinks I’m overthinking this whole thing, says it’s just how people communicate now. Maybe he’s right, but it feels like we’ve lost something important in the translation. The spontaneity of genuine conversation, the actual surprise of learning something new about someone you care about, the intentionality required to stay connected with people’s lives.
I don’t have solutions here, just the uncomfortable recognition that we’re all participating in this weird social dance. Maybe we could try being more honest about our digital habits – “Yeah, I saw that on Instagram and wanted to hear more about it.” Or maybe we could resist the urge to scroll through someone’s entire life before meeting them for coffee, leave some room for actual surprise and discovery.
For now, I’ll keep pretending to be shocked by information I consumed three days ago, keep nodding along to stories I’ve already read, and keep wondering if there’s a way to have authentic relationships in an age of constant digital surveillance. Just do me a favor – next time you see me, act surprised when I tell you about this whole phenomenon. We both know you’ve already read this, probably checked the timestamp and comments section before we even said hello.
Brenda’s a Minneapolis teacher and mom trying to raise kids in a world glued to devices. Her posts mix honesty, guilt, and humor as she navigates parenting, teaching, and losing daily battles against technology. She’s not a technophobe—just a realist with Wi-Fi exhaustion.
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