Social Media Evolution
Young people are rapidly becoming dedicated fans of New York Times Games like Connections and Strands, playing them obsessively and sharing their experiences on social media platforms like TikTok. To answer the question posed in the headline: Because social media sucks, and everyone wants to escape!
Performance Art Puzzlers and Sushi Kudasai
Each week, we see the emergence of a new tech wave that exposes a striking duality: on one side, a pursuit of simplicity and minimalism; on the other, a plethora of sophisticated technologies offering alternatives to the established leaders, aiming to define the future beyond smartphones.
Has tech become bipolar?
Since the election, thousands have abandoned their X accounts — and while alternatives like Bluesky have seen growth, many people are turning further inward to smaller group chats, via text message or on platforms like Discord, where they can have conversations “free of algorithmic determinations.” (Re: “algorithmic determinations,” I really liked... See more
Hobbyfications and Algorithmic Determinations
Free of Algorithmic Determinations
TikTok—one of the biggest repositories of AI slime—is exploring the possibility of releasing virtual influencers to compete for brand deals against its human influencers. Instead of a brand paying a human influencer five or six figures to flog its clothes or cars (a sum TikTok doesn’t get a cut of) the platform wants to offer brands the option of... See more
Is the ‘Dead Internet’ theory suddenly coming true? This could be a sign
Algorithms, or at least the ones used by social media platforms, were supposed to be about discovery. But now they’re operating more like those daytime HGTV home decorating shows. “Oh, you like horses? We turned your house into a fake stable. Your dinner table is now bales of hay.”
We're all fed up with the algorithm
If that’s the case, humans who want to engage with other humans and their creations may, for the first time in decades, have to avoid the internet and— gasp —return to the real world for authenticity. Sure, you won’t find shrimp Jesus there, but at least you’ll find some genuine human connection.
Is the ‘Dead Internet’ theory suddenly coming true? This could be a sign
Internet absurdity vs. real world authenticity
But with AI, it’s now possible that such a thing may happen, that AI could come to generate the majority of the content we humans see on the web. Indeed, a 2022 report from European law enforcement agency Europol pointed out that experts believe that as much as 90% of online content may be synthetically generated by 2026—90%!
Is the ‘Dead Internet’ theory suddenly coming true? This could be a sign
Users keep telling the app over and over again what they want: To post photos for their friends. And yet for some reason Meta continually takes these learnings and decides that people avoiding Instagram’s front-facing features by increasingly using Direct Messages means they must want to *spins wheel of things Adam Mosseri scribbles into a notepad... See more
Instagram is doing too much
Whatever we do, the internet isn’t returning to old-school then-common interfaces like FTP and Gopher, or organizations operating their own mail servers again instead of off-the-shelf solutions like G-Suite. But some of what we need is already here, especially on the web. Look at the resurgence of RSS feeds, email newsletters and blogs, as we... See more