We can't make social media good because it's inherently bad. All we can do is hope it gets worse and we do our part to abandon it.
Russia: The Atlantic
It ended. Facebook is down, Twitter in chaos. The value of Mark Zuckerberg's empire fell by hundreds of billions of dollars and the company laid off eleven thousand employees; Advertising revenue is in sharp decline and the metaverse project has stalled. After Elon Musk bought Twitter, advertisers pulled investment and many influential users left the platform, or at least said they intended to. The idea that the age of social networking could end, and very soon, has never seemed so possible.
Now that we have landed on this shore all of a sudden, we can contemplate with our eyes the wreck of the ship that left us here. Perhaps we will be relieved: social networks have never been a natural way to work, play and socialize, even though they have become second nature. Our use of these platforms has evolved through a strange mutation so subtle that we have not noticed.
The transition began twenty years ago, when almost all computers connected to the network and people began to use them to build and manage relationships between them. Building social networks online had its problems – for example, collecting friends was more important than being friendly with them – but they were nothing compared to what happened next. Slowly and without fanfare, social networks took "power". The change was almost imperceptible, but it had far-reaching consequences. Instead of facilitating existing connections - mainly as a function of life outside the Internet, for example to organize a birthday party - social networks have transformed them into possible means of communication. With the stroke of a pencil, billions of people convinced themselves that they were famous and opinionated, and that they could create new trends.
A global network in which anyone can say anything to anyone, whenever they want – and in which everyone feels they deserve this opportunity – is a very bad starting point, tied to the very concept of social media: systems designed and used to produce an endless stream of content.
Once upon a time there were many social networks on our planet. In 1997, Six Degrees was launched, which took its name from a show inspired by a psychological experiment. It quickly closed after the tech bubble in 2000: the world wasn't ready yet. In 2002 Friendster arrived, followed by MySpace and LinkedIn, then hi5 and Facebook, which was born in 2004 for university students. In the same year Ork was born, built and maintained by Google. In 2005 it was the turn of Bebo, then bought by Aol. Google Buzz and Google+ didn't last long. You may never have heard of them, but before Facebook was ubiquitous, many of them were extremely popular.
Content sharing sites also served as social networks, allowing viewing of content posted mostly by people you knew or famous people. These included Flickr, for sharing photos, and YouTube, which was once thought of as a sort of Flickr for videos. They were joined by Blogs – and blog-like services like Tumblr – posting posts that few people saw and very few commented on. In 2008, Geert Lovink, a Dutch media expert, published a book on blogs and social networks whose title summed up their purpose: "Zero comments".
Toxic instruments
Today, these and other services are known as social media, a term so familiar that it no longer has a precise meaning. However, twenty years ago this expression did not exist. Many of these sites were part of the so-called web 2.0 revolution, of user-generated content, offering tools that were easy to use and leverage on sites and then on phone applications. They were conceived to create and share content.
But at the time, and for years, these tools were called social networks or, more commonly, social networking services (SNS). The number of these services increased so much that a funny acronym was invented: Yasn, meaning "Yet another social network". (Bota.al)
As the name itself implied, social networking was about making connections, not posting content. By connecting one's personal network of selected contacts ("strong ties," as sociologists call them) to other people's networks (through "weak ties"), a larger network of trusted contacts could be created. LinkedIn promised to facilitate job hunting and networking in the business world through various levels of connections. Friendster did it for personal relationships, Facebook for college friends and so on. The basic idea was networking: building or deepening relationships, especially with people you knew. The methods and reasons for this study were left largely to the discretion of the users.
Things changed when social networks became social media, around 2009, between the introduction of smartphones and the launch of Instagram. Instead of creating connections, social media offered the possibility of posting material that could be seen by large numbers of people, many of them beyond direct contact networks. Social media has transformed everyone into content producers and distributors. The results have been disastrous, but also delightful and extremely profitable: a disastrous combination.
The terms social network and social media are now used interchangeably, but they don't have to be. A social network is a filing cabinet for maintaining contacts, a passive system. While social media is active – in fact, hyperactive – constantly posting content to these networks.
In 2003, a study of Enterprise Information Systems was published, which pointed out this aspect for the first time. The authors described social media as a system in which users participated in an "information exchange". The web, which had previously been used to create and maintain relationships, was reinterpreted as a medium through which content could be distributed. It was a new concept. When News Corp bought MySpace in 2005, The New York Times called the site "a music platform and 'social network' for young people." Its main content, music, was thus separated from social networking functions. Even Zuckerberg's vision for Facebook, "connecting the whole world," spoke of building connections, not content.
The toxicity of social media makes one forget how magical this innovation was to begin with. Between 2004 and 2009, all you had to do was log into Facebook and everyone you knew, including those you'd lost track of, was there, ready to connect or reconnect. The posts and photos I saw depicted how my friends' lives were evolving, not the conspiracy theories their crazy friends were spouting. LinkedIn did the same for the business world, making referrals, negotiations and job hunting much easier than ever before. (Bota.al)
Twitter, launched in 2006, was perhaps the first true social media, although no one called it that at the time. Instead of focusing on connecting people, the site was like a big global chat room. Twitter was about talking to everyone, and that's probably one of the reasons why journalists flocked to it. It is true that in theory a blog could be read by anyone with an Internet connection, but in practice it was difficult to find an audience of readers. This is why blogs first functioned as social networks, through mechanisms such as blogrolls (the collection of links to other blogs) and linkbacks (a link to your blog from another site). On Twitter, however, anything posted could be seen instantly by anyone. Also, unlike blog posts, Flickr images, or YouTube videos, tweets were short and not too overwhelming: it was easy to post too many in a week or even a single day.
The concept of the "global square", as Elon Musk called it, stems from all these factors. On Twitter, you can be instantly informed about any news. This is also why journalists have become so dependent on Twitter: it is a constant stream of sources, events and reactions, a vending machine for news, as well as a showcase for information tools.
Instagram, which was launched in 2010, may have transcended the age of social networking and social media. It used connections between users as a mechanism for the main activity, which was the distribution of content. But very soon all social networks became above all social media. With the creation of groups, pages and the news section, Facebook began to encourage users to share content posted by others to increase engagement on the site, rather than updating their friends. LinkedIn has also made it possible to publish content across the platform. Twitter has added the "retweet" function, making the viral spread of content much easier.
Accepting the fall
Other services have been created or evolved along these lines, including Reddit, Snapchat and WhatsApp, which are far more popular than Twitter. Social networks, once avenues to reach potential contacts, have turned into highways of constant content. In their last phase, the typical elements of social networks have come into the background. On TikTok you can follow specific users, but the app is above all a continuous stream of video content, selected by an algorithm. To use some functions of these services it is still necessary to connect with other users. But the connection is no longer the central element. Think about this difference: in the age of social networking, links were essential because they drove us to create content; The age of social media, on the other hand, aims for as few connections as possible, just enough for content to flow. (Bota.al)
This evolution has created both opportunities and problems. Facebook and other platforms have seen a huge increase in user activity and advertising revenue. The same phenomenon has also created the influencer system, in which individual social media users have become valuable tools for the distribution of promotional messages or product sponsorships, thanks to the real or imagined number of people who see their posts. Ordinary people have been able to earn some money or even become rich by creating content online. Platforms have sold this promise, creating programs and mechanisms to facilitate it. That of the influencer has become a coveted role, especially among girls and boys who have found it easier to become famous through Instagram than in more traditional ways.
The result was disastrous in many respects. First, social media managers discovered that the more emotionally charged content, the more it spreads. Polarizing, offensive or simply false information was ideal to achieve this. By the time the platforms realized this and users rebelled, it was too late to disable the mechanism.
The obsession with collecting contacts, which has always affected social networks, has fueled the problem even more. Collecting friends or business contacts on your online profile for future reference has never been a healthy way to understand social relationships. In 2003, it was as common to obsess over the number of contacts on LinkedIn as it is today to look for followers on Instagram.
But when social networks became social media, user expectations rose. Driven by investor pressure and then Wall Street demands, tech companies – Google, Facebook and all the others – became dependent on large-scale numbers. Reaching and profiting as many people as possible easily and cheaply has appealed to everyone: the journalist trying to build a reputation on Twitter; the 20-year-old aiming to find sponsorships on Instagram; the dissident who promotes his cause on YouTube or tries to start a riot using Facebook; people selling sex, or their image, on OnlyFans; the fake guru who gets paid to give advice on LinkedIn. Social media has shown that everyone has the potential to reach large audiences at low cost and high profit, and this potential has given many people the impression that they deserve such an audience.
But there is also the other side of the coin. On social media, everyone believes that every user should be heard: a writer posting an article, a celebrity announcing a project, the anonymous person voicing their angst. When connections are made, for whatever reason or no reason at all, then every one seems worth taking advantage of. It's a terrible idea. People are not made to talk to each other that much. They shouldn't have so much to say, they shouldn't expect to get so much attention, and they shouldn't even get the right to comment or oppose any thought or concept. From the requirement to review every product purchased to the belief that every tweet or photo on Instagram deserves a like, a comment or a follow, social media has produced a deranged and sociopathic interpretation of human sociability. It's not surprising, given that the model was designed in workplaces like Facebook, where sociopathy is part of the corporate philosophy.
If Twitter were to fail, either because of declining revenue or the massive debt imposed by Musk's deal, the outcome could help accelerate the decline of social media in general. It would also be tragic for those who have relied on these platforms to find news, connect with others, have conversations or simply out of compulsion. This is the hypocrisy of the moment. The race for likes and shares was so popular because the era of zero comments had been grim, and because the quest for a large number of followers killed the alternatives long ago. (Bota.al)
If change is possible, it will be difficult to achieve because we have transformed our lives to fit the pleasures and pains of social media. It seems that quitting is as difficult as it was to quit smoking en masse, as Americans did in the 20th century. It took decades of laws, awareness campaigns, social stigmas and aesthetic changes to stop smoking. We didn't quit smoking just because it was bad, out of fashion, or even because it could kill us. We did it slowly and over time, forcing social life to stifle this habit. A similar process is now needed for social media.
Our part
Something could be saved: social networks, the heart left behind by these platforms. It's never a bad idea to use computers to connect with others from time to time, for justified reasons and in moderation. The problem was that it became a way of life, an aspiration, an obsession. The offer always sounded too good to be true, but it took twenty years to realize the diabolical nature of the deal. One day, finally, maybe his web will unravel. But not quickly and not easily.
A year ago, when I first talked about a resizing, this goal seemed necessary but impossible. It still seems unlikely, but perhaps again plausible. It's a victory, albeit a small one, provided withdrawal doesn't turn us into addiction. To approach the essence of social life, we must learn to contain it, all over the world, among billions of people. Talk less, to fewer people, and less often, and get others to do the same with you and everyone else. We cannot make social media good because it is inherently bad. All we can do is hope they will weaken and we do our small part and contribute to abandoning them.
Ian Bogost is a journalist for The Atlantic and a professor of computer science at the Georgia Institute of Technology – The Atlantic – Bota.al
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