Member-only story
Microprocessing
Posting Images of Empty Grocery Store Shelves Just Makes Everything Worse
Why you should think before you post
In Microprocessing, columnist Angela Lashbrook aims to improve your relationship with technology every week. Microprocessing goes deep on the little things that define your online life today to give you a better tomorrow.
The images are all over Twitter. They’re in the press. They’re on Instagram and TikTok.
The grocery store shelves are empty.
It’s tempting when you go out into the world and see something strange, to share it with the world. Whether it’s a bulldog on a skateboard or a shelf completely depleted of its resident packs of Charmin and Scott, we want to tell the people in our lives when we’ve witnessed odd things. But while there’s little to lose, and in fact much to gain, from posting images and videos of cute animals on your social media feeds, the same can’t be said for sharing photos of anxious shoppers standing before a shelf that once housed canned tomatoes and pasta and now provides sanctuary to a single bag of chewy quinoa orzo.
