Social Media and a Loss of Connection

Hi, my name is Bhargav Patel. By trade, I am an entrepreneur and involved with multiple start-ups that focus on advertising; one of my passions is ensuring people have a voice in open internet. IQM, the digital advertising technology platform I co-founded in part to modernize “get-out-the-vote” efforts, landed me on Crain’s 40 Under 40 list in 2019.

But helping people be heard isn’t enough. Without back-and-forth conversations, we can’t solve problems. Without give and take, we can’t build relationships.? Across today's social media platforms, it seems social discourse is rarely social and meaningful connections are often difficult to make. To address this, I am working on a new social community platform called Genuin. It’s purpose-built to foster and sustain one-to-one conversations about topics that matter. Here is why that's important.

The Chase for Superficial Connections

Back in the early days of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed his now famous mantra: Move fast and break things. And break things he did, from shaking up bureaucratic processes to upending societal norms. Facebook and other social media networks transformed how we connect with the people we like, love, and barely knew in school. Over the past decade, however, our favorite social media platforms have shifted towards mass impersonal connectivity.

In the succeeding years, social media users have also developed a mantra: It’s not who you know, it’s who you follow. So we added influencers, brands, and celebrities to our aggregation of former classmates, ex-colleagues, and long-distance relatives. According to a study commissioned by Pernod Picard, just 23 percent of friends on Facebook are considered genuine by those polled.

Call it vanity, loneliness, FOMO, whichever; many of us continue to expand our networks while trying not to sacrifice connectedness. But social media foments an illusion of vanity numbers to chase for validation: Hey, I have, you know, 100,000 people following me, or I have 5000 people in my network. I will also admit to having a loose collective of friends and connections who are just there as a number.?

Networks Are Decreasingly Social

Nowadays, as you scroll through your Twitter (sorry, old habit, I mean X), Instagram, or TikTok feeds, you might wonder if you signed into your account. Everything feels unfamiliar as you passively consume content from accounts you never followed. Your feed becomes cluttered with suggested posts, tweets from blue checkmarks, and ads on top of ads.

Have you ever audited your numbers? How many friends or followers in your network translate into meaningful connections or business opportunities? How many genuinely care about your well-being? And vice versa. Do you share content to spread knowledge or as a quid pro quo for likes and follows?

If the latter, it's understandable. Today's social media platforms act to deprioritize knowledge, with engagement metrics and vanity metrics getting priority. Metrics-based amplification spreads faster than knowledge-sharing.

When it comes down to it, the people you interact with daily—your family, friends, business associates, the ones you high-five in real life—that's where you truly feel the essence of a network. The real value of relationships, friendships, and networking opportunities only materializes when you need those people in the real world.

One-to-One Is Dead, Long Live One-to-One

One-to-one networking experience is missing in today's social media platforms that have lost sight of their original purpose as they attempt to evolve from being the current big thing to the next big thing. Snapchat lost users in the US for the first time some years back even as they tried to broaden its audience with new, non-photo-sharing features like gaming.?

Other platforms haven't outgrown their utility but abandoned it. Instead, they entice users with metrics, igniting a social validation arms race. But what does that achieve? It ends up creating a sense of loneliness. You find yourself posting for likes rather than nurturing genuine connections. It's all about expanding your perceived influence, not sustaining organic relationships.

Social networks have become media platforms for endless scrolling, ditching their role in fostering genuine sociability. Some people get disheartened and settle for the bare minimum—they lurk, maybe post their daily Wordle; others become frustrated and delete their accounts.

Worse, your social interactions are more often with those who take offense by even the most innocuous thing you say. Trolls with no interest in healthy debate but want to dogpile your account into non-existence. And typically, many of these trolls are people with newish accounts, numerous digits in their username, and 13 pornbot followers. Good luck telling them to go outside and touch grass.?

The Big Shift Back to Smaller

In some dystopian science-fiction novels, the United States of America has dissolved into smaller nation-states dedicated to protecting their own interests. Something similar is happening online, all-in-one platforms now see users withdrawing to niche-oriented discords or other sites narrowly focused on special interests. Deeper relationship-building now transpires in communities that are hard to find or even closed off, and important voices may be shut out.

Nowadays, you cannot throw a rock without hitting a new social media network whose purpose is to cover the ground abandoned by the old stalwarts. The Twitter bird has gone the way of the dodo bird and new platforms strive to become what Twitter used to be. Do you have an invite? Are you waiting for others to join first? Will you use the same username across platforms? Will your online identity fragment??

Crucially, will you still wallow in discussions that are the conversational equivalent of empty calories? Or endeavor in meaningful two-way dialogues severely restricted to niche topics??

It Takes a Community

Some of the problems that social media has right now is that there's a lack of proper content moderation. Yes, individuals are somewhat empowered to do their moderation, they have the tools. But communities are at their best when a group of people who share common interests also share moderation responsibilities. I belong to a cohort, me and my peers do what's best for our community. All unpaid volunteer work, but very important. I put everything into my moderation efforts, but I may miss out on certain aspects, which my peers will pick up on.

Contrast that with current social platforms that give you moderation tools but do not allow you to create a cohort. The platforms decide the rules and regulations of what your community can see and what content gets delivered. People should always be empowered to work together to curate content in a way that ensures all perspectives are amplified.?

The Power of One-to-One Amplified?

I believe social media no longer cultivates or nurtures one-to-one connections. In the hunt for likes, we seem to have fleeting conversations that are more contentious or sarcastic, when we really need meaningful, productive discussions on the things that matter to us.?

This post is the first in a series where I explore some of the issues with today’s social media platforms. Let me know what you think is the biggest problem with social media.