Where do people hangout online these days?
Everywhere has an agenda and is pushing something. Facebook has the greatest share of my IRL friends and family, but the newsfeed only shows content from groups (that I’m both in and not), ads, and companies. The goal there is content served, not connections made.
Early Twitter used to be more what I’m missing, but soon their algorithm also turned against open communication and towards ad impressions.
When I was a teenager we had so many social networks and they felt truly social. Today they’ve all morphed into content generation platforms. Instagram is no longer about seeing what friends are up to, but staying aware of what’s trending (as if I should let that should influence me to remain accepted). The goal isn’t to make a single connection, but to make a viral hit.
I miss writing on a Bebo whiteboard.
I miss nudging a friend on MSN messenger, hoping they’d be finished with their dinner soon.
I miss writing emails to penpals in foreign countries, learning about how their life is different to mine and not being worried that they’re aiming to extract money from me, or are not even real.
Is there such a thing as a social network anymore?
There’s already a growing backlash against AI-written content, and a strong desire to know when something is the work of a human rather than a computer. That’s not to say that AI isn’t a hugely impressive step forward, but that we collectively have no desire for it to replace human art.
That didn’t happen when social networks evolved into social media. The dopamine hits, being more novel, were too addictive, and the algorithms are now so finely tuned that I fear a majority of us are being served exactly what we want to see.
We’re still in the handful of first generations to have an instant connection to people all over the world. We’re a social species and we’ve built a global network. We’ve got to use this much more to our advantage. Surely.