I suppose it goes without saying that we—the various generations that make up current society—are the social media guinea pigs. We won’t fully know or understand, if ever, the extent of its various effects on us individually and/or collectively. It’s terrifying to think of the larger and more sinister ways social media might be harming us, but rarely do we think of social media’s micro invasions and what that might do to us. Or if we do think about it, we probably aren’t doing much to avoid the ten-minute scroll through FB or Instagram.

In many ways, I think the question of how we relate to social media is at the heart of the aptly titled “Toxins” by McKenna Marsden, published in Pithead Chapel. The story is told from the perspective of Harper who, we learn later in the story, is recalling the events of the story because of the voyeuristic permission lent to her by social media, as she checks on Dani, her childhood friend: “I know from Instagram that she lives in Portland now… that she still favors dramatic eyeliner…that she has a lot of friends who post cryptic jokes to her comments.” Yes, Harper is checking in, intentionally or passively, we don’t know, with a former best friend with whom she’s lost touch. The thing acknowledged here is that the level of information known about one another is off-balance. Harper knows a lot about Dani, but Dani might not know much, if anything, about Harper who doesn’t “post much to social media.” Instead, Harper, it seems, uses it as most of us do: to scroll, to check on, and to read updates about those people in her life she once knew. And from this scrolling, we get a recollection of a childhood that these two—Harper and Dani—shared together.

The story, of course, is about much more than social media. I think the story examines very convincingly the worth of those vital and urgent relationships we have when we’re younger but now no longer exist. What do those relationships mean? What part did they play in our growing up? Even though we’ve lost touch, and we rarely think of those people anymore, does that lessen who they were to us then? Do those relationships even matter?

Even more so, I think this story examines how our home life and background drastically affect who we might be as adults and where we might go. How one differing variable, such as growing up with a hypochondriac mother, could potentially make a difference in who we are now, and what we might become. Maybe I’m pointing out the obvious here, but the story does such a thorough job at “showing” us how a child’s background and home life really do make a difference—for better or not.

Or maybe not. Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe I’m reading way too much into this story. Maybe it’s simply a story about two girls growing up in drastically different households who share time together because they want to fit in, they want acceptance. And these two girls go to painful, though humorous, lengths to get there –rolling fake cigarettes made of dried lawn grass and sprinkled with spices found in the kitchen drawer to attract the attention of some older classmates.

In either case, however wrong I may be (or not), I think this is the mark of a good story—one that raises more questions than answers; one that helps us reevaluate our lives and how we view our current and past relationships. What can we derive from these reflections? How might they influence how we better understand ourselves and the world? Did, or do, any of the isolated events and relationships from middle school matter? How much do they matter? Are we better off knowing what our childhood friends are up to even though our only connection is virtual? Would we be better off not knowing what these same people are doing with their lives since we’ve lost touch anyway?

I have no idea the answer to any of these questions, especially the ones related to social media, though I do think those relationships matter. Or they did matter, anyway. I hope so, anyway. Otherwise, what’s the point? And what’s the point of the story? I’m not in the habit of answering my own questions, but for this one, I’d add: the point, I think, on some level, on the human level, is that, yes, it does matter. At least I hope so.