The Great Social Media Reset - We Scroll More Than We Post.
The good ol' days of writing on your friends' walls and doing status updates is over. With the "enshittification" of social media, users are turning to DM's to post amongst their trusted community.
«The 2-minute version»
Today, a large chunk of social users rarely post anymore. However, 63% of the world’s population is on at least one of the social media platforms, more than double the 27% a decade ago.
Turns out: A growing chunk of the population is happy simply scrolling through feeds and stories. In fact, a study by Morning Consult showed that 61% of all U.S. adults are becoming more selective about what they post online, specifically Gen Zers and millennials. Yet, social media takes up roughly a third of Americans’ total time spent online.
Welcome to the “enshittification” of social media: This is an idea borrowed from Wired’s Cory Doctorow, where the premise of the “enshittification” lies in the underlying economics of centralized social networks, which tends to diminish the consumer surplus as the adoption of the platform grows, thus diluting the user experience on the platform. The Cambridge Analytica scandal is a perfect example that illustrates what “enshittification” is all about.
Once upon a time: It was fun to do status updates and write on someone’s wall. Ah, the good ol’ days, when it was okay to be fearless, silly, and funny online. However, sooner than later, issues of privacy and the fear of being “judged” or “cancelled”, became front and center, which made people more cautious about their own lifestyle online.
Now, it’s more media than social: As users are hesitant to post about their lives online, the baton of media supply is entirely passed on to power users such as creators and influencers. At the same time, social media is increasingly replacing the TV or local news channel, with social media users expected to outgrow the number of TV viewers in the U.S. by 2025.
Posting is going underground; say hello to DM’s: That’s right, given the history of privacy issues and breaches of trust over the last decade, people are increasingly turning to closed communities, annonymized threads and DM’s, where they feel safe and secure to post about their lives and share their opinions on matters that they care about.
Stay tuned for Part 2!!!
When Snapchat SNAP 0.00%↑ was launched in the summer of 2011, a lot of people were scratching their heads, wondering: What was the point of letting users send photos, videos, and messages only to disappear a few seconds after they were received? It seemed the complete opposite of what Facebook META 0.00%↑ was trying to do at the time.
In 2013, two years after Snapchat’s launch, the app’s founder, Evan Spiegel, was asked to explain the rationale of the app’s self-destructing social feature, to which he said,
“Somewhere along the way, when we were building social media products, we forgot that the reason we like to communicate with our friends is because it’s fun. People started conceiving of their friends as networking tools, like “friend me so you can be friends with someone else” or “the more people you know, the more networked you are.””
To a large extent, much of Spiegel’s notion still finds vague relevance in a world where more people are on social networks than ever before. Yet, a large section of social users rarely post anymore. Instead, a growing chunk of the population is happy simply scrolling passively on the networks through their feeds, stories, threads and tweets.
A curious case indeed. Let’s dive in to find out what’s going on.
People Have Become Even More Fussy About What They Post Online
In October last year, market research company, Morning Consult surveyed U.S. adults to examine behavioral trends among social media users. Data showed that 61% of all U.S. adults with a social media account said they have become more selective about what they post on social networks. The results also showed that roughly a third of the participants also reported posting on their preferred social platform less than they had a year earlier.
But astonishingly, this behavior was the most pronounced in Gen Zers and Millennials, as seen below.
The observations in this survey are startling because Gen Zers and Millennials make up one of the largest segments of social media users today. At the same time, more people are coming online on social networks than ever before. At last count, 62% of the world’s population was on at least one of the social media platforms, more than double the 27% a decade ago. Yet, social media users, led by Gen Zers and Millennials, are increasingly getting choosy about what they post online.
But it's not like users are cutting back on time spent online or on the networks. Studies show that social media took up roughly a third of Americans’ total time spent online in Q3 2023, slightly higher than what was seen a few quarters ago.
In addition, some social media apps are becoming relatively more popular than others. In another survey conducted by Pew Research, TikTok, Youtube, and Instagram showed the largest spike in usage between 2021 and 2023, whereas Facebook and Twitter saw a decline.
All these surveys were collectively pointing to a new reality of social media: a growing number of users prefer to hide their digital lives under a rock without cutting back on the time that they spend on these platforms.
The ‘Enshittification’ of Social Media
In an unabashedly titled opinion piece about the evolution of social media platforms, Wired’s Cory Doctorow opined on his homegrown concept of social media's enshittification.
The idea is that centralized social network platforms do everything to recruit users and third-party complements, such as creators, developers, and businesses, as they work to strengthen the network in their formative years. Along the way, social media platforms create surplus, which is distributed to the users directly, mostly in the form of innovation and product features that directly benefit the user, adding to their consumer surplus.
As more people begin to adopt the platform, the network’s power over its users and third parties steadily grows. Like Chris Dixon, Partner at Andreesen Horowitz, says the relationship between the network and its participants eventually changes from positive to zero-sum along the adoption curve, as they continue to extract data from users in order to keep growing. This is the premise of Doctorow’s social media enshittification concept, which I have illustrated below using the concept of economic surplus.
As you can see above, when platforms expand over time along the adoption curve, they erode the surplus, creating platform inefficiencies (think: hacks, privacy, too many ads etc.), which dilute the user experience. The most notorious example of such an erosion of surplus and diluted user experience was the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which put Facebook in the roughest spot in the history of its public purview. The biggest casualty for Facebook and for the broader social media industry was the perpetual loss of trust that is felt even more today.
Last year, technology research giant Gartner predicted that 50% of consumers would either abandon or significantly limit their interactions with social media by 2025. Their research indicates that a perceived decay in the quality of social media platforms is pushing consumers to actively limit their use of social platforms. Emily Weiss, a principal researcher at Gartner, said that “compared to a few years ago, consumers are sharing less of their own lives and content.” The top reasons for this perceived decline were the spread of misinformation, toxic user bases, and the prevalence of AI bots, according to Gartner.
On top of that, most social media algorithms over the years have been programmed to push content from power users who post more regularly as compared to other users. (Power users are also often known as creators or influencers 🤳🏼). The algorithmic spotlight on creators and their hyper-curated content has made some users feel insecure and less likely to share their own photos and videos, said Kevin Tran, media analyst at Morning Consult.
Can I have some privacy? PLEASE
There was a time when status updates used to be a thing. It was one of Facebook’s most popular features, along with writing on someone’s wall. Take the example of an old post on my wall from 2010.
In the interaction above, I have a silly response to a silly question that was posted on my wall in an era where it was ok to be fearless, silly, and funny online. Apparently, I was also responsible for pulling together an alumni magazine, and my professor found me loitering online when I should have delivered this magazine days before.
There are two takeaways from this example that I put up. First, just like Snapchat’s Spiegel pointed out earlier, social media indeed had a fun element to it back then. A lot of the fun has fizzled away since then due to the enshittification of the social media experience that Wired’s Doctorow mentioned before. Or, some may argue it has moved to other platforms. Fair enough.
The second takeaway is that privacy is of paramount importance to users today. Say, if a prospective employer got their hands on this data point about me and used my previous Facebook wall interaction to decline my job interview, would that be a breach of privacy?
Seemingly so, given the abundance of information that is already available about many of us online. This is not new. Employers have been running social media checks on prospective candidates for years. Facebook has since rolled out privacy features, and many jurisdictions have launched their own data protection laws, but that has not indemnified users from their privacy problems. Especially when Facebook’s parent, Meta Platforms, announced its intentions to utilize user data to train its own AI models.
The other problem with privacy is also the fear of being judged or "canceled." By having too much information out about themselves, users fear swift judgment will be cast upon them if their views are not appreciated by the masses online. Many brands, such as Bud Light, Aunt Jemima/Pearl Milling Company, Goya Foods, etc., were canceled overnight after the companies addressed certain political and social issues that were not consistent with the expectations of their social media followers online. The same can be said about recent events unfolding at Harvard’s campus and Google’s offices today.
Take this old survey, for instance, which was conducted a year after Edward Snowden leaked classified documents to news agencies. When asked about the sources for their news on the Edward Snowden story, an overwhelming 90% of the respondents indicated that they were keeping up with the story either via a news agency or on social media. At the same time, when they were asked about whether they were comfortable sharing their views, at least 60% of the participants indicated they were willing to discuss these topics only among their close connections or their community.
Today, those views would still stand given how much more politicized our world has gotten as political discussions get more heated and geopolitical conflicts continue to rise. There is too much at stake with just one post that has a 50/50 chance of being misunderstood. Given the odds, users are increasingly choosing to keep their privacy over posting online about their lives and their opinions.
That doesn’t mean Social Media is dead yet...
…It just means that social media is becoming more media and less social. With users hesitating to post about their lives, the baton of media supply on social networks is being entirely passed on to power users such as creators and influencers.
For many, social media is replacing the TV or the local news channel. The pivot to video content manifested by TikTok’s surge in popularity, Instagram’s shift to video format, and Youtube’s fight to hold its dominant share only added more fuel to the fire. eMarketer thinks the number of social media users will outgrow the number of TV viewers in the U.S. by 2025.
This should come as no surprise, as long-form content is seemingly back in vogue on social media apps. This is also probably one of the reasons why the average global user has at least 5 social media accounts spread across different apps. Concepts like doomscrolling further support this theory, where we either scroll till our phone’s battery dies or switch over to another app to see if our thirst to consume can be quenched by rival social apps.
As for the ‘social’ part of social media.. a lot of the ‘fun’ and'silly’ action is moving underground into direct messages (DMs), closed communities, and small group chats, according to Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram. On a podcast last year, Mosseri admitted that users post less and scroll more on the feed, but they share what they scroll behind closed doors.
Messaging apps might be one of the new realities that social media companies have to embrace. But for Spiegel, this new reality might just be old wine in a new bottle.
In Part 2 of this series,
We will explore how social media companies are adapting their technology and platforms to regain users' trust and keep them engaged. We will also delve into the concept of decentralization on social media networks and how that fits into the broader vision for social media’s evolution.
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I’m still on team silly banter FWIW, but I doubt anyone cares what I had for breakfast (2 cups of coffee, a protein drink, and a cookie)
Fascinating and well researched. Where does WhatsApp belong in this landscape? I'm confident having fun with friends on there. And...what about Substack itself?