Think of your online life as a garden. At first it’s just a few seeds here or there – a Facebook profile where you created entire albums from a night at the pub, or maybe a Tumblr or a Myspace page listing your favourite bands. It is fun – something just for you and your friends to enjoy.

Then the garden grows. You get an Instagram account and document moments from each day on Stories, use LinkedIn for networking and sharing career triumphs, and check your X/Twitter hyper-vigilantly in case you wrote something that just got you cancelled.

Your online garden grows more sprawling and complex; now it’s no longer just a fun project for yourself on weekends and weeknights. As it grows, you start to view it through the eyes of others.

How will this garden be seen? Will people like it? What can I plant in this garden that will make more people like it?

A few more years pass. And now, instead of working on the garden here and there, you’re in there all the time. You have discovered if your garden is really enticing, you can make money off it. You want – then need – big numbers coming in there. You look at other people’s gardens all the time and you get........

© The Guardian