This is a good thing. Group chats and invite‐only circles are where context and connection survive. These are spaces defined less by scale than by shared understanding, where people no longer perform for an algorithmic audience but speak in the presence of chosen others. Messaging apps like Signal are quietly becoming dominant infrastructures for... See more

Scrolling has become a form of ambient dissociation, half-conscious, half-compulsive, closer to scratching an itch than seeking anything in particular. People know the feed is fake, they just don’t care.

These platforms haven’t just captured attention, they’ve enclosed the commons where social, economic and cultural capital are exchanged. But enclosure breeds resistance, and as exhaustion sets in, alternatives begin to emerge.

Social media’s death rattle will not be a bang but a shrug.

Since Elon Musk’s takeover, X has shed at least 15% of its global user base. Meta’s Threads, launched with great fanfare in 2023, saw its number of daily active users collapse within a month, falling from around 50 million active Android users at launch in July to only 10 million active users the following August. Twitch recorded its lowest monthly... See more

While content proliferates, engagement is evaporating. Average interaction rates across major platforms are declining fast: Facebook and X posts now scrape an average 0.15% engagement, while Instagram has dropped 24% year-on-year. Even TikTok has begun to plateau. People aren’t connecting or conversing on social media like they used to; they’re... See more

semi‐public parlors where people choose their company and set their own rules, spaces that prioritize continuity over reach and coherence over chaos. People will show up not to go viral, but to be seen in context. None of this is about escaping the social internet, but about reclaiming its scale, pace, and purpose.

Outrage fatigues. Irony flattens. Virality cannibalizes itself. The feed no longer surprises but sedates, and in that sedation, something quietly breaks, and social media no longer feels like a place to be; it is a surface to skim.

The timeline is no longer a source of information or social presence, but more of a mood-regulation device, endlessly replenishing itself with just enough novelty to suppress the anxiety of stopping. Scrolling has become a form of ambient dissociation, half-conscious, half-compulsive, closer to scratching an itch than seeking anything in... See more