It’s absolutely one of the worst things to happen to society.

Social media and social networking are two very distinct things.

I think this is right but not quite.

Politically, social media lately has fractured into ideological spaces. I go on bluesky or truth social or X or a certain subreddit to keep up with the politics as filtered through my tribe.

A lot of people opt out of these spaces because of the huge amount of political content and the lack of nuance in discussion. But it also radicalizes the people who stay as they get their sides view of the political conflicts of the day. And they get addicted to winning arguments for their side.

It used to be that Twitter revolved around whatever Trump did. Now people go online to find a little club they can kanoodle and bemoan how their side is the ultimate victim. And people will justify a lot of horrible things if they think they’re the victim.

I have an extended family and also an extended circle of friends that are spread all over the world. In both cases, numbering dozens of people, what would have previously been a slow erosion of contact and any real knowledge about most of them except those absolutely closest to me by necessity, has been converted into the ability to keep abreast of their daily lives, know when some direct communication might be helpful and generally take joy in being able to see how the good things in their lives move forward (or offer a hand when they don't). All of this almost entirely thanks to social media.

This not to mention the interesting figures it lets me directly follow and the shared interest groups it lets me find.

Is social media a complex and vast thing with its many pitfalls and flaws? Of course it is. The corporate giants that run much of it have some very disgusting habits of passive aggressive manipulation of their users, and grossly parasitic dark patterns of surveillance behavior.

Nonetheless, under and around all of that, there's also a tremendous amount of practical human good being created by so much previously impossible connection between millions of family members, friends, loved ones and people who share things in common. I refuse to throw that baby out with the bath water as some seem to propose.

Political manipulation, factionalism and ideological bickering have always been a part of human culture, for at least as long as we've had written words and means of spreading them. Could anyone have expected any differently to emerge from the massively democratizing landscape of social platforms, which let literally anyone communicate their own two cents of thought to places and context where anyone else at all might instantly see them and respond? Of course not, but to focus only on that is almost elitist in its implied notions of shutting up the masses because they don't communicate and debate "correctly" (even if many of them are indeed stupidly influenced by all kinds of interests, whithin and outside of social media).

While this is an engaging essay, it's premature to claim that social media is dying. The state of social media has been awful for years, and yet billions stuck around. There probably is no depth low enough that the majority of users would abandon it.

The essay also neglects what is possibly the largest part of a solution: systems to guarantee authenticity of users and user claims...

A social media user shouldn't have to wonder if the brain surgeon giving them medical tips actually is a high school dropout, or the fellow Parisian sounding the alarm on French politics actually is a 12 year old Quebecer, or the new fan DM'ing them about their music actually is the same psychopath who online-stalked them two years ago, etc.

Social media isn't going to die. It badly needs a mechanism for users to filter out bad information.

Social media hasn't been social for a while. Personal posts from people I know are buried under the algorithms. It's a high friction action to actually find my friends. All the defaults are pointed at optimized content from generic sources. I have many friends that are artists and musicians. I follow them on these platforms and my engagement with them is captured and funneled into garbage content about art and music instead of letting my see my friends. I hate it.

HN is the same echo chamber though. This same topic posted here every single week from random blogs to The Guardian, everyone posts their anecdotes, group hug, taps on the back and back to nothing. Rinse and repeat next week. You could just copy paste the top comments from the previous posts if you want some free karma.

eh, I'd say monetization/gamification was the issue.

bet a social media without likes, organized in circles, would be way less toxic.

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