But we are surrounded by people not doing that, and not even through any fault of their own for the most part. They are wired into an endless machine that trades dopamine hits for their money. Children are wired in before they even have a chance to resist.
Twitter is widely mocked as a cesspool of conversation. Facebook is seen as antiquated. Instagram and TikTok are the current darlings but they seem to have less of an iron grip than the OG social networks.
The future is probably not another winner-take-all network. We’ve tried enough of those. The future is probably smaller networks where users self-select into them based on affiliations, much like web forums.
This is just a side note, but my Instagram feed has become basically entirely irrelevant. It's just reel after reel from people promoting themselves or some product. The network feels increasingly like a rapid-paced HSN/home shopping network or similar.
Do I look at it daily? Yes, I do. But I'd say that 95% of the content I see on it is junk, very few of my peers are posting their lives on there.
As for blue-line Facebook, it's so slow it's borderline unusable. I'm not sure what happened (ReactJS maybe?), but the performance is a fraction of what it was ten years ago.
> The future is probably smaller networks where users self-select into them based on affiliations, much like web forums.
Yeah it's like everyone got drunk on connection and is slowly rediscovering peace in disconnecting. I'd wager you're right about this.
Yep. My IG feed is very quiet after I muted all the self-promoters and overly-prolific posters. Plus, I only follow people I know IRL, so I hit the "you're caught up" marker within 20s or so easily. The result is it is very rare to load up IG and find something of interest. I can still stay connected, but it doesn't grab me. I feel like the reel section just doesn't work for me, either.
> very few of my peers are posting their lives on there
Yes, this is not a great sign for IG. It is still relevant in that people click the icon everyday, but it seems to be slipping.
Weird, I've seen social media and "online communities" move into the publicly accepted sphere more and more. 10 years ago you'd be looked at funny by certain people if you said you had a social media or reddit account, and nowadays it's just sorta expected
I used to feel like I wanted to "Save Them From Themselves" but I no longer care. As long as I and my family are not zombies, I could care less that the rest of these people we're surrounded by are lobotomizing themselves. As long as they aren't in my way they can do what they want. They'll be voluntarily stepping into their own Matrix Pods in 20 years and I won't be.
I used to feel the way that you do, but in a social democracy "I don't care what those idiot zombies do" has it's limits, because everyone gets an equal vote.
Also, you say that "As long as I and my family are not zombies", but every single one of my friends and family with kids age 10 and up are genuinely pretty terrified about the potential impact of social media on their kids: "I feel so lucky I didn't have to deal with this when I was growing up" is a common refrain I hear. And yes, all these parents try to teach their kids about the pitfalls of social media, but they know they can't just can it, so it's a huge, largely negative influence that they feel limited power to fight against.
