Social media are under pressure. Think of the tension around TikTok between the US and China, the new policies of X (former Twitter) under Elon Musk and the increased critique of the tech-elite in the US. The past weeks, Meta’s turn to the right and removal of third-party fact-checking led to much criticism of the company. Many users are leaving Instagram and Facebook, but wonder about which platforms to adopt next.
Bluesky, Reddit, Discord, Tumblr, Mastodon, Signal – it seems our online friends are everywhere and nowhere. That also makes it difficult for users to leave giants such as X or Facebook. As NBC news reports: ‘Some users have said they feel trapped on Meta platforms, especially WhatsApp, because they use the services to communicate with family members, friends and personal networks.’
Is it the end of social media? If so, why, and what’s next?
Algorithms and Ads
Social media might seem less fun to you these days, and you are right. Old school social media such as Hyves were highly customizable, leading to each user having a unique profile space and appearance. Social media used to be experimental, and a way to express yourself through your content, your profile and your feed.
Old school social media were less algorithmic as well. A feed was controlled by you and highly searchable. Today, algorithms keep feeding us with new content. Scrolling on TikTok, for example, never ends. The algorithm keeps giving us new, snackable bites of content and we can stay on TikTok while hours go by. This makes today’s social media very engaging and even addictive.
Algorithmic social media, such as TikTok, are radically different from other platforms, such as Reddit. In regular social media and message boards, you can actually reach the end of your feed. You are not continuously prompted to engage. Now that I’m using Bluesky instead of Twitter, I’m really noticing how different this experience is. Fashioned after old-school Twitter, Bluesky has no ads and shows you content of your connections first and foremost. This is a far more cohesive media experience. You can scroll through the feed and it actually ends. It’s a very different experience from Instagram, Facebook and X, where new content keeps appearing, mixed with countless ads.
Monopolies such as Meta profit from user data and content. They engage in data capitalism, or even data colonialism. In this context you often hear the credo: Data is the new oil. And yes, these tech giants will do anything to keep us engaged on their platforms. Algorithms support this, but also have many problems, such as algorithmic bias. We get profiled in user groups and get the same stereotypical content spewed back to us.
Luckily, there are many alternatives to these algorithmic social media. We could just leave, right? In theory yes, but in practice it can be difficult to simply switch platforms. Many of us have been using Facebook for twenty years, and it’s hard to unlearn this habit. Moreover, platforms are a walled garden – opting out of them means missing out on a lot of content, experiences and connections that we can’t get elsewhere. What if we miss that one post by that one friend? What if we can’t follow our favorite content creator anymore?
Social media platforms benefit from the fear of missing out, and that’s also why they make it very difficult to cross-post to anything outside of their company (looking at you, Meta).
Lack of Discussion and Empathy
Another reason why social media has changed is polarization. Groups are pitted against each other with little to no nuance or space for discussion. As illustrator Marloes de Vries writes in Is the End of Social Media Near?: ‘Social media has become a space where nuance is a rare commodity. That world has turned increasingly black and white, and the idea of not having an opinion on something is virtually unheard of.’
Social media are a landscape of hot takes, opinions and fights. However, it would be unfair to pin this polarized landscape only on social media, since polarization is a wider, cultural development, related to political discourse, policies, governance, human rights and so much more. However, I do think platforms incentivize this and even profit from polarization.
Essentially, platforms are all about attention, and attention is monetized. This is also why we sometimes call social media an attention economy or affective economy. Dependent, Distracted, Bored by Susanna Paasonen explains these sentiments well. Social media thrive on emotion, including boredom and anxiety, to keep us engaged. Those negative emotions go hand-in-hand with positive ones, such as a spark of inspiration or joy.
In such an emotional culture, there is no space for depth, because the focus is on snackable, scrollable content while we quickly hit the like button. And guess what’s extra engaging? A spicy, short comment or internet fight.
Parallel to this trend, there is also a trend of deep knowledge though. On the one side, we have lengthy conspiracy theories where users have puzzled together a lot of information into their own narratives. We might not agree with those theories or values, but it is a form of alternative collective intelligence that pivots today. Think also of YouTube’s increased focus on long-form content and video essays. Video essays are an accessible way for users to digest cultural critiques, theories and philosophies. As a media scholar, I get so enthusiastic about the fact that content creators managed to bring our work outside of the classroom!
Still, depth is the exception on many platforms. It’s a key reason why some of us are now leaving certain social media, or engaging primarily with our own groups.
The End of Social Media
One can wonder if we finally reached the end of social media. Here, I’d like to remind you that the end of social media has been predicted many times already. Think of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which prompted many critics to announce the death of Facebook. Similarly, there was the “Tumblrpocalypse”, when the platform’s NSFW policies changed and led to a massive exodus from Tumblr. Myspace, Habbo Hotel and Neopets – all platforms that changed or ceased to be. Some reinvented themselves after many users left, others did not.
A digital exodus is nothing new. In fact, gamers encountered this digital migration many times when beloved virtual worlds closed or became less popular. In Communities of Play, Celia Pearce for instance provides a detailed account of the “Uru diaspora” of Myst Online, and their experience of the world closing. The fans of the game met in other virtual worlds to maintain their connections and love for Myst. While the world closed, they still managed to stay in touch in new ways.
In Predictions for Journalism 2023, Francesco Zaffarano writes about how journalists keep predicting the end of social media ‘Predicting the end of social platforms is the ultimate expression of a secret desire to put them back in the attic because we fear we will never quite learn how to use them.’ I agree with his sentiment. Social media cannot be controlled and we are out of our depth. So we predict their end and hope it comes true. Still, I fear that social media are here to stay.
That begs the question – is there a solution to these problems? The endless ads, feeds and twisted algorithms? Yes, one way out is that we look for alternatives that are better. Avid LiveJournal bloggers, for instance, took to Dreamwidth and Tumblr. Similarly, Twitter users now explore Bluesky or Mastodon looking for an optimized experience, provided by a company that they trust.
Social innovation is another solution. We can create platforms that are owned by us and designed for us. Alternatives can be bottom-up, for instance, led by communities themselves. A great example is Archive of Our Own, which is created by fans themselves. This open-source platform is ran by volunteers who do all the work. The tags are for instance checked by “tag wranglers” and great attention goes to categorizing content. All of this is human labor, no algorithm comes into play here.
We can have a different internet that is customizable, fun, relevant and searchable. But it is a decision and it’s hard to dial back on what tech giants have created today. I don’t think we can live in a world without social media and radically disconnect, but I do think we can start working on alternatives. That means that internet must become a public space again, and not characterized by large, private companies.
A new age of social media will take time, effort and resources. It also begins with a different relationship between tech companies and governments.
Nicolle Lamerichs 