Crescer sem as redes sociais

As the internet grows in size, we feel like we’re surrounded by people and lonely at the same time. It feels increasingly harder to feel safe expressing ourselves authentically in the predominant gathering spaces. We feel like we’re either invisible or presenting at an auditorium. Things have to be more explicit, black-and-white in the new world.... See more

According to Eleanor Stern, a TikTok video essayist with nearly a hundred thousand followers, part of the problem is that social media is more hierarchical than it used to be. “There’s this divide that wasn’t there before, between audiences and creators,” Stern said. The platforms that have the most traction with young users today—YouTube, TikTok,... See more

They showed us a way to connect with others, widen friendships, find others in similar or different communities, and stay on top of life events and milestones. Then, they stripped it all away, stuffed everything with algorithmic sludge designed to push engagement metrics higher, and left us scrolling like the dopamine addicts we are.

New social networks have typically struggled to monetize due to their small audience sizes, as they are unable to achieve the scale to make meaningful revenue from advertising. Paid communities, however, supply an engaged and paying audience, providing an alternative route to sustainability for independent social networks.

What we once loved about these platforms is how people shared their everyday descriptions of life, love, family, and curiosity.

The problem isn’t that the mean has decreased. It’s that the variance has shrunk. Movies, TV, music, books, and video games should expand our consciousness, jumpstart our imaginations, and introduce us to new worlds and stories and feelings. They should alienate us sometimes, or make us mad, or make us think. But they can’t do any of that if they... See more

How can we make the web more natural and human-first rather than computers or institutions? How do we wish to interact with the internet beyond "browsing?” How would we shape the internet and our container for inhabiting it (currently, our browsers) if they were our neighborhoods and homes?