Is it true that social networks are dead?

If you are a regular on social media, you will have noticed that in recent months your posts are receiving less and less attention. That is, their photos have fewer likes on Instagram, fewer views on stories, fewer retweets on X (or should I say less reX?). Don’t worry, you’re not alone: ??Internet culture is quietly but inevitably shifting toward private messaging, ephemeral content, and anonymity.

This is said by the CEO of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, who explained that most of the growth of this group has occurred in stories (that ephemeral content that is no longer visible in 24 hours). This is also said by TikTok, the platform preferred by generation Z, which is expanding the team responsible for its direct messaging functions. And TikToker Taylor Stewart says it in a viral video where she laments the lack of interaction on her social networks: “The people who watch your every move, watch everything you do, but they don’t support any of it.” . (…) It’s just people staring at you, and it’s just disgusting. Ghost Watchers.”

“Social networks as we knew them are dead,” says University of Illinois-Chicago professor Zizi Papacharissi in an article published in The New York Times that predicts the end of the platforms as we know them until now. Networks have become less social and more mediated: fewer and fewer people create content and the majority of users are simple voyeurs, just as happens in traditional media. In fact, faced with the possibility of generating content or not, the majority of the population chooses not to do so.

“The average social media user is more a consumer of content than a producer,” says social media expert and professor of Communication Sciences at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), Ferran Lalueza. “Now the algorithm prioritizes content from people with whom you have no ties and precisely what drives you to create messages on social networks is the reception you get for the published content,” he adds. The emergence of Tik Tok, back in 2017, which in its famous algorithm prioritizes the interests of users – what they like – instead of the content generated by the social environment – ??that is, what family and friends publish – represents a point turning point in the history of networks.

In fact, most technology companies have followed in the footsteps of the Chinese company. In 2022, Zuckerberg announced that the Facebook feed would become a “discovery engine” for searching for engaging content on the Internet. Facebook thus moved away from some of the most mythical slogans that have marked its trajectory: “make the world a more open and connected place” or “more together.” That same year there was an algorithm change in X, which began to show its users more content coming from outside the network of people they follow. Threads, Meta’s Twitter clone, launched with a similar approach.

Social networks continue to be popular among Spanish Internet users, who dedicate 1 hour 07 minutes a day to them, according to the annual social media report prepared by IAB Spain. Users between 12 and 34 years old are those who spend the most hours online (1h 32min on average). But more and more users are reluctant to be exposed on these platforms. Only 28% of Americans say they like to document their lives on social networks, compared to 40% in 2020, according to a survey last year collected in an article recently published in The Economist to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the birth of Facebook.

“Technology companies are no longer struggling to get new users, but are instead seeking agreements with influencers who, through their professional content, attract large volumes of audiences,” says Lalueza. The business model of technological platforms is changing at the same time as consumer habits.

The new generations are also more cautious regarding their public exposure. Almost 95% of boys between 14 and 17 years old review what and with whom they share their social life, according to a study by the Internet Institute at the University of Oxford. “We have been educated in the culture of the digital footprint, since we were children we have been warned about the importance of what we publish on social networks to get a job, so we limit and take care of our publications,” explains Communication student Irene Suñer. , 20 years old.

Unlike previous generations, millennials and boomers, the young people of generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, are more jealous of their privacy and do not act in a carefree and naive manner online because they know of cases of public figures. who have lost their jobs due to an inappropriate comment on a social network, from the soccer player Sergi Guardiola to the politician Guillermo Zapata, to name just a couple of examples. The list is endless.

“It is normal for younger generations to place more emphasis on distrust of the relationship between their information and the Internet,” says Lalueza. “The generations that grew up parallel to the development of the Internet did so unconsciously, amazed by the enormous change that the content that one publishes can reach any place in the world; On the other hand, the generation of the 2000s, who were born with these platforms, have done so under the ideology that if the product is free, the product is you,” she adds.

Surveillance capitalism and the era of big data are the coordinates for interpreting the internet now. This is why young people distrust, and are also less likely than older people to fall for misinformation, and the so-called fake news (since if content is false by definition it is not news, the news is presupposed to be verified). of the facts). Generation Z is much more skeptical when informed online and continues to trust traditional media.

“We keep our privacy safe from social networks, because everything that happens there is, in one way or another, a lie,” reflects Albert García, also a 20-year-old Communication student, “which does not mean that we do not use them to looking for a job, for example, but to contact friends it is better to have a B account.” Having a B account or a second profile under a pseudonym on Instagram is a widespread practice to share the most intimate and personal content with closest friends. Many Zs use these private accounts like their parents use WhatsApp.

This type of account is called finsta (the combination of the words fake and Instagram) and shows the most real side of people. Collect the most personal photos, without filters and without aesthetic framing, as well as jokes, drunkenness and everyday moments without significance. Pseudonymous accounts are a response to the pressure that many teenagers feel when publishing content on Instagram, where the majority of images portray moments of apparent happiness. Other applications that have become popular recently such as BeReal and Tik Tok Now also seek naturalness and immediacy compared to the filters and perfection of Instagram images.

“Pseudonym accounts are also used for cyberbullying,” says Suñer, “many take advantage of it to do things that they know are not right without worrying about the repercussions they have,” he adds. Making life miserable for a classmate beyond school or spying on your partner or ex-partner are some of the most perverse uses of digital anonymity. Sharing a hobby and connecting with people who share it or learning more about a subject are less perverse uses of B accounts. Some young people have between two and four Instagram profiles, and they attribute various uses to them: the “public” account, the “private” for friends and everyday life, which is used to learn something new or follow your favorite artist; the one that is used for less trustworthy uses.

Social media has become the main way people use the Internet, and an important part of how they experience life. Most of the time we spend in front of a mobile screen is spent on social applications and we have agreed that these constitute the current “public sphere”, where the issues of the day are discussed and public opinion is constructed. Social networks have articulated the latest social movements, from the

Now, after two decades of evolution, the public sphere is being rebuilt. After the arrival of competitors like TikTok, and the emergence of artificial intelligence, social media platforms have been forced to reinvent themselves. Although they began as digital spaces where you can interact with friends and family using your own content, they are becoming entertainment channels similar to traditional media. At the same time, users are preserving their privacy and moving their conversations to closed, private groups on platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram. The new stage of the Internet displaces the social component with other functionalities such as private messages, anonymity and ephemeral content. Goodbye to the social era, welcome to the mediated and anonymous internet.