The Death of Social Media

Social media is dying. Once the poster-boy of a generation of Millennials who grew up on the internet, social media engagement is on a great decline. This is due to: 

1. The rise of SMS apps 
2. The rise of Video content
3. The rise of News on Social Media platforms 
4. Digital attention deficit apathy (DADA)

As the amount of content increases on the web, information overload turns to micro attention spans, resulting in only snapshots of attention. The result is also what I call digital content apathy. I think it's a web epidemic. 

For instance, I go on Facebook and witness a couple of trending viral videos, I read a couple of headlines of articles of news, I put it away. This is no longer the authentic space where I feel it's appropriate to share my life story or an event that happend to me. 

Social media therefore is no longer perceived as: 

1. Intimate 
2. Authentic 
3. An accurate depiction of my personal narrative or a projection of my online identity worth investing in. 

Let me reframe this for you: (and maybe you can relate)

Facebook: that place where I wasted time when I was young. Where I have more chance of reading the comments of seniors than I do running into an old acquaintance of mine. (not that there is anything wrong with older folk going on Facebook). 

Twitter: a wasteland of links to nowhere and opinions that feel more like spam and bots that re-tweet keywords. A world of scheduled posts and anonymous dead-zones where only greedy influencers remain. 

Instagram: an attention grabbing never ending advertisement of youthaholic celebrity culture gone wrong.  A place where hustlers pretend they are entrepreneurs and fake accounts pretend they stand for something even though its unclear what they represent at all. 

LinkedIn: professionals networking in an age where algorithms decide who you are actually affiliated with. A never ending resume, recruitment and application to greener pastures and mentors called influencers who seem about us approachable and intimate as advertisements that you want your ad-blocker to block. 

Pinterest: the idea that an image can symbolize or encapsulate a story or a dream you have, mostly based on materialistic and pointless accessories and lifestyle preferences that have about as much salience as a new pair of shoes to your actual identity. 

The Hype

It does not matter how many millions of active users you say your platform has, I'm perfectly able to judge the quality of the experience that you offer me, and on nearly every channel it is in decline. I don't actually care about live streaming or how you think you will dominate virtual reality and exploit your user base for profit. 

I have more friends who have left Facebook permanently, shutting down their accounts, than I do who have joined Snapchat as a serious activity. Social media still has relevance for a brand, but not as a person or a social experience. Personal brands can still do wonderfully there, and perhaps that is now the point. 

As older folk never bought on to the social media hype train, GenZ and younger Millennials actually are opt-ing out in favor of apps that allow them to communicate easier and who crave more authentic engagement. 

The fact is Facebook users are sharing less personal updates, and this is a snowball effect that will only get worse. Facebook tried to hide it counting video views (on auto-play no less), but it was inevitable. 

A damning report published by The Information  revealed that Facebook has been struggling to reverse a 21% decline in “original sharing,” or personal updates, from its 1.6 billion monthly active users

The real reality is consumers and especially mobile natives crave newness, and we've seen everything new under the sun for quite a while now. As YouTube is still fascinating, we are starting to tire as a culture of the same big social media networks and their ploys for our attention. 

Do you still view social media as a relevant space for you to share your actual life?