We Aren’t Posting on Social Media as Much Anymore. Will We Ever?::Users say excessive ads, bots and misinformation have sucked the fun out of sharing publicly.
Turns out we actually did not need nor want to hear so much from other people.
This should be the top comment.
Succint, accurate.
Love it! I did feel uncomfortable with 2010s-Facebook-style excessive public sharing. Most of my friends, with me included, abuse the close friends Instagram feature and I’m all for it. I know a couple of people who deleted their old Facebook accounts because digital footprint was too frightening – particularly, the shit they posted during their teens in private Facebook groups that they have long left.
All of this is obviously not related whatsoever to data harvesting; this fight is against individual stalkers rather than corporate ones. But it’s a blessed one non the less; stalking shouldn’t really be a thing.
Big tech social media is for exploiting users and driving psy ops campaigns. People should stay away from that shit.
Yeah I feel the future of social media is gonna be more private self moderating chats. Especially as AI generate content will fill ppl feeds with more and more clutter it’s bound to happen. I don’t have the stats on me, but most ppl lurk and rarely post, I read. So with less posters and more lurkers it’s becoming less interesting .
Like I only recently started posting a couple of years ago not daily or even weekly but occasionally because, I realized that some body has to post, and why not it me?
As with anything, I’m sure the Pareto principle applies - something like 10% of people provide 80% of the content. I’ve seen stats that seem to support that social media reflects Pareto, or even lower.
These general users are shifting to Discord. The people I actually WANT to interact with are moving to indie social platforms (i.e cohost, fediverse, spacehey) and revitalizing forums. I strongly recommend against seeing this as a systemic issue against social networks/media; it’s an issue with VC funded ones that prioritize growth above a better platform and community. For the health of the internet, please do not flee to walled garden discord servers. Use social media for what its for; make connections with random people. Using it just to follow famous people you’ll never directly interact with will isolate you.
I’ve been using Signal stories and telling people to follow me there. I know it gets lots of hate but honestly it’s the only form of private social media. It has no ads or bots. My “posts” get sent to exactly who I want them to and no one else.
There is another similar project called Circles from FUTO that uses Matrix but it’s very Alpha right now.
I don’t think for myself, it’s primarily the fault of bots, misinformation and ads. It’s… Us. We’re not as interesting as we like to think we are and I have just gotten exhausted slogging through the “look what I can do” posts.
It’s much more rewarding for me to follow videos or threads of people actually creating something that interests me than it is to scroll through feeds consisting of online acquaintances posting memes, pics of purchases, food and locales.
My preferred medium is YouTube subs via freetube of channels whose content appeals to me(carpentry, car builds, mtb, etc). I don’t use any social aspects of the platform, I just like to watch the content.
