AS my fellow columnist Angela Kelly wisely wrote in this newspaper on Wednesday, social media is a fascinating phenomenon.

She was highlighting the ‘Scroll Free September’ initiative, which is encouraging people (in the spirit, pardon the pun, of Dry January) to give up scrutinising social media for a month.

This in effect would mean that – via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat etc at least - you would get a temporary respite from the world’s latest news/fashions/daft cat photo/what the next door neighbour has eaten for tea.

In effect, it’s a digital detox, which some experts believe might do our mental health a world of good.

Fair play. It seems like a good idea; even cutting down your time on social media can definitely have a beneficial effect.

I mention this because coincidentally, I was reading Angela’s piece (in print not online by the way) just after a nugget of social media-related news that almost made me drop my mobile.

At the start of this year, Facebook announced that it was testing an idea it calls ‘Watch Party’.

This is a feature which would allow FB users to all view the same TV programme or film in the same virtual ‘room’ and comment on it and then interact with each other at the same time.

It is probably just my age, but, but seriously, this is just not happening anywhere near me.

When watching Game of Thrones, or Westworld, or Doctor Who, or, well just about anything, I demand silence.

I’m not happy if the cat comes in the same room mid-programme.

So, the thought of dozens of others with the attention span of a goldfish commenting every 30 seconds during a TV show I have chosen to watch to relax, leaves me dumbfounded.

I am perfectly prepared to accept that I feel this way because I am 52, not 22.

Also, I do understand why it might appeal to friends or relatives who live in different parts of the world who might be able to feel a bit ‘closer’ to each other if they join a Watch Party together.

Twenty or 30 years ago when a TV show unveiled a big surprise – for example discovering just who did shoot JR in the American soap ‘Dallas’ – there would have been a collective jaw drop amongst fans the length and breadth of the land.

And then everyone would have talked about it the next day.

For a moment, just imagine that surprise from ‘Dallas’ played out in Watch Party in 2018.

A typical response may, for example, read as follows: ‘O.M.G. Totes amazeballs. TBH that wuz GOAT.’

Which, loosely translated means: ‘Oh my goodness. What an incredible surprise. Frankly, that was the best thing I’ve ever seen’.

Having said that, If Watch Party does catch on, who knows, I might change my mind. I was one of the last people to get a smartphone and now it’s surgically attached to me.

And come to think of it, I wish I had been able to share with a bunch of virtual buddies my astonishment while watching an episode of ‘Inside the Factory’ with Gregg Wallace, when I discovered that Heinz baked beans are cooked INSIDE the sealed cans!

Who knew? I know – it is just totes amaze.