Over the past few weeks, a flurry of discussion about the future of social media has been set off by investors punishing Facebook for its ten-year plan to build a metaverse and Elon Musk’s controlled demolition of his newly-acquired Twitter. 

Facebook is in decline, and Twitter is in chaos. Mark Zuckerberg’s empire has lost hundreds of billions of dollars in value and laid off 11,000 people, with its ad business in peril and its metaverse fantasy in irons. Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has caused advertisers to pull spending and power users to shun the platform (or at least to tweet a lot about doing so). It’s never felt more plausible that the age of social media might end—and soon.

There are a lot of concerns that Musk will soon destroy Twitter, but we shouldn’t worry about this mainly because social media networking is already dead. That is, the platforms that came to define "social media" as we came to know it over the last decade and change—Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, to be sure, but also Tumblr and even earlier progenitors like MySpace—are largely being left in the dust and out-competed, replaced by other platforms and their own models of online interaction. 

Now that we’ve washed up on this unexpected shore, we can look back at the shipwreck that left us here with fresh eyes. Perhaps we can find some relief: Social media was never a natural way to work, play, and socialize, though it did become second nature. The practice evolved via a weird mutation, one so subtle that it was difficult to spot happening at the moment.

What is Social media?

Social media is a term that, today, has a very loosely-defined meaning. It refers to a class of apps, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, designed to keep us connected, but as the social mediums of the past changed, so too did the meaning of the word. In the article that follows, we’ll explore the rise and current fall of social media. We’ll also briefly touch upon the dangers that these apps pose and how society has become so fully engrossed in social media. 

The current social media climate

Where we are today is at a crossroads. Social media in its current iteration is primarily comprised of people doing either stupid, dangerous, provocative, illegal, or downright disgusting things for ‘clout’ – or social media exposure.

This is because more followers, likes, views, and comments typically mean more chance at becoming that rare thing; a social media influencer. The fact that we call these people influencers should already be a red flag of note. That literally means that we accept that their actions, opinions, and biases are meant to influence the masses. These influencers have already had some mark on society in the past.

Social media is in a state of disarray right now. We live in a time where Zuck is complaining that Facebook is losing money because people of a certain demographic are dying. The rest of the social media extended universe is calling Facebook an old folk’s home and Twitter is in an inherently unstable liminal space at the moment.

It’s as if this entire effort has been a massive social experiment. The experiment has failed, for the average person at least. For corporations, however, this experiment has generated billions upon billions in cold hard cash – or cryptocurrency. 

The anti-social social media movement

There’s a massive movement toward a disconnected life happening right now. Disconnected from social media, that is. Which, in turn, means more connected to each other. This is most noticeable amongst the generation termed Gen-Z. Gen-Z, while having grown up suckling at technology, are moving away from social media and toward healthier lives. Gen-Z, for the most part, realizes that you cannot be happy with yourself while being exposed to the fallacy that everyone else on social media has a more fulfilling life than you do.

In a larger proportion of people, social media usage and mental stability are mutually exclusive ideas. You’ll also find that the larger portion of people who are truly happy on social media have found a way to generate an income from it. The anti-social media movement is gaining traction by the day. It is resulting in droves of people deleting their social media accounts or, at least, using social media less and less. 

Where does it end? 

This story ends with the inevitable demise of social media – at least in its current form. Every day, people are slowly realizing that they don’t need influencers; they don’t need the constant drip of dopamine that keeps them addicted to social media. People are waking up and realizing how much social media has taken over their lives. While there are good aspects to social media, a lot of these were lost when we moved from social networks to modern social media.

In order to remain a part of the human experience, social media needs to change. Unfortunately, or perhaps, fortunately, it won’t change. Tech billionaires are not likely to get less greedy, and the only way social media could ever be healthy is if it became less about trying to make money at the cost of the freedoms and liberties of others – and that’s practically Meta’s bread and butter. We’ve seen how much money means with Meta cutting services and products and firing half its workforce. It’s also visible with Twitter saving on employee and infrastructure costs in the Musk era.