I like to use social media as little as possible, although I have recently begun to realize that my own sense of that has warped over time. (Once, in an argument with a friend about how much attention we should give over to social media, I blurted out that everyone should get a maximum of three to four hours a day on Twitter, and he looked at me like I was crazy, before offering that he spends maybe 10 to 20 minutes on it a day.) Anne Hathaway seems to agree with this idea—an interview with Town and Country reveals she uses social media “sparingly,” and only if she has a good reason.
Hathaway says she only uses Instagram for up to 15 minutes a time, a restriction that allows her to “focus my intentions.” She also let someone else take care of actually posting to Instagram, which gives her time to think twice about photos and captions before sending them:
Hathaway, on the other hand, does not in fact post anything herself. She creates the content, as it were, for her 12.8 million Instagram followers, but she sends her pictures and captions—which are sometimes lengthy—to someone else. That person holds on to them, giving Hathaway at least an hour to deliberate, and then sends posts back for final approval.
“That way I look at it with fresh eyes,” the actress says. “Because once it’s out there, it’s out there.”
Honestly, this sounds like something everyone could benefit from: mandatory chill-out-for-a-minute periods before smashing that “send” button. This could backfire, of course, if you already feel anxious about posting stuff. (In which case, I’d like to give you a gift: You can always just not. Seriously!)
According to Town and Country, Hathaway is also “more likely to compose an inspirational message, a political rallying cry, or—gasp—a picture celebrating another star,” than posting about herself. That sounds like a lot of stress; I’ve often joked that people who use social media in this way need a second brain to come up with these photo ops and captions, and look at them with as much awe as I do bouts of confusion. When did social media become this way? I’d like it a lot more, I think, if Hathaway posted pictures of her cat and/or whatever salad she ate for lunch.