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Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

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Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#161

Post by abathur »

queuebert wrote: post #131
CharlieDigital wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a bit of nuance in how these two are different and I'd say Mastodon feels more like early Twitter or early Facebook. On the consume side, that means your home feed has no algorithm. Practically, it means you only see what you want and you only see it linearly. You never wonder "why am I seeing this and how do I make it go away?" (e.g. Elon constantly in my feed for some reason) Content can only enter your ho…

I also found that Elon was always in my feed even though I don't follow him, so I blocked him and now he's gone.

So you're the reason he wants to remove the block button :)

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#162

Post by kwhitefoot »

I post something almost everyday.

When I see a headline making an absolute statement like this I immediately dismiss it as an exaggeration. A variation on Betteridge's law [1] perhaps. Their are other social media than the big ones.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#163

Post by neogodless »

seydor wrote: post #108
buro9 wrote: post #40

It might not be for everyone, but I'm posting more on social media than ever and seeing more engagement than ever... it's on the fediverse where smaller and safer communities are leading to much higher valuable engagement. I'm also finding it a lot more common for people to have multiple profiles / personas... the social one, the work one, the furry one, whatever is how you want to present yourself and to whom, witho…

TBH i don't get the point of mastodon. Social media is primarily "media", broadcasting, so they must be megaphones, which by necessity includes large scale commercial and entertainment activity. Mastodon's purpose of small cozy chats is better served by ... chat which is more self-selective and fit for the niches or countercultures

> large scale commercial and entertainment activity

I think you're redefining "social media" (which I think was previously called "social networking" once upon a time) as "broadcasting" and "megaphones" so naturally your definition doesn't fit.

But socializing online is about sharing information, interests, and building a (small, or the size you prefer) network of people you consider online friends.

Discord does seem to work well for chatting about those same things with the people I know, and I can easily see how others use it for the same usage but with online-only friends. But whenever I visit my corner of the fediverse, I see lots of like-minded people sharing content that's relevant to me (the hashtags I follow), and I've engaged and enjoyed the experience.

There was and is no reason why any of that requires "large scale commercial and entertainment activity", and, in fact, those things seem antithetical to building up a community of people you want to communicate with online about your interests.

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#164

Post by vntx »

nicbou wrote: post #49

An online community should feel like an online pub. It should have a vibe, some regulars, inside jokes, and a decorum that is somewhat well enforced. They're cosy places where a sense of belonging encourages participation and good behaviour. HN is like that. Small subreddits are like that. Group chats are like that. But now every social media website became like that one pedestrian street with the H&M and the McDonal…

> Why would you invest yourself in a space like that?

Low barrier to entry. Convenience. Ease of use. Sign-up and now you can talk to your friends from across the world!

Now, you have to be force-fed shit ads along the way.

I don’t think anyone who values their social life would like it if you put it like that, but inertia and the gravity of network effects are a bitch.

The real problem is these private platforms have the power of public utilities, and we treat them like public utilities until they pull the rug from under us, and siphon our data to profit psychopathic overlords.

Furthermore, these companies don’t just throw ads at you, they also aid the surveillance state which can compromise your basic rights to privacy and fair elections. Malicious foreign governments use it to influence elections with false information and propaganda. Malicious domestic government can use it as a easy spying tool by buying or scraping data.

No one will be safe on these things until we get proper government regulation. The EU’s GDPR is a step in the right direction but more work needs to be done.

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#165

Post by neogodless »

mancerayder wrote: post #154

I've been observing a pattern that I've been trying to articulate here and I can best describe as a framework where stuff 'comes to you' whereas the Internet for a long time was an enabler of 'you go to stuff'. The pendulum swung back, thanks to ad tech, and centralization, that have or are trying to orchestrate a culture shift. Okay, here are some concrete examples. 1. Television/cable (absent a TiVo type device), t…

Overall I think this is related to a personal choice to consume or create. Of course with DVDs/streaming or social media, a lot of it is naturally going to be consumption no matter what. But the medium kind of steers you towards one or the other. Social media seemed like a way for you to express yourself, to create and share, but the algorithms nudged everyone into endless consumption scrolling. Creativity is only rewarded if it helps the money-making machines.

I don't want to push a value judgement upon creativity vs consumption, but I do think people should take it upon themselves to look critically at their own values, and what they want to spend their life doing - particularly how much of a balance they want between bringing something into this world vs. taking what they can get from it.

In creative pursuits, you want to "go" to the stuff that will be a tool or enabler of what you aspire to do. (And sure, you'll want some inspiration to "come to you".) You have to decide for yourself if you value "the machine" bringing everything to you more than you might value some individual pursuit.

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#166

Post by fooker »

mancerayder wrote: post #154

I've been observing a pattern that I've been trying to articulate here and I can best describe as a framework where stuff 'comes to you' whereas the Internet for a long time was an enabler of 'you go to stuff'. The pendulum swung back, thanks to ad tech, and centralization, that have or are trying to orchestrate a culture shift. Okay, here are some concrete examples. 1. Television/cable (absent a TiVo type device), t…

Facebook's VR bet was exactly this.

Experiences come to you instead of you going to experiences.

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#167

Post by datavirtue »

""How does a brand show up in somebody's DMs or Discord server if they're not invited?" Haberman said. But in many ways, that's the point. People can still go on Instagram to check on their favorite celebrities and influencers, but young people don't want brands and marketers infiltrating the closed communities where they spend most of their time."

Young people? That's why I left Facebook. Your brain getting chewed up by ads and alt-right trash.

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#168

Post by kypro »

mancerayder wrote: post #154

I've been observing a pattern that I've been trying to articulate here and I can best describe as a framework where stuff 'comes to you' whereas the Internet for a long time was an enabler of 'you go to stuff'. The pendulum swung back, thanks to ad tech, and centralization, that have or are trying to orchestrate a culture shift. Okay, here are some concrete examples. 1. Television/cable (absent a TiVo type device), t…

Interesting. You describe something I've noticed myself, but haven't thought about in terms of the push / pull dynamics of tech products.

> How will a world in which Things Come to Us and We Dont Go to Things anymore affect us cognitively long-term?

As you touched on your yourself this was probably the default before the last couple of decades. There was a short period around 2010 where people (especially the youth) were quite divergent in interests and political views.

Today it seems people increasingly have shared opinions and interests. This is is a shift that's been quite alien to me since I grew up during the early internet when it was the norm for people to play different games, watch different films and listen to different music. There was no social media network effects and little to no recommendation algorithms or ads online.

Today this seems to have changed. Try finding a Gen Z who doesn't have an iPhone and isn't wear a pair of Nikes, for example. They are the result of the trend you describe, I believe. They like things not because they sought them out neutral platforms but because these things were pushed on them either by the network effects of social media or the recommendation algorithms and ads that litter the internet today.

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#169

Post by Liquix »

mancerayder wrote: post #154

I've been observing a pattern that I've been trying to articulate here and I can best describe as a framework where stuff 'comes to you' whereas the Internet for a long time was an enabler of 'you go to stuff'. The pendulum swung back, thanks to ad tech, and centralization, that have or are trying to orchestrate a culture shift. Okay, here are some concrete examples. 1. Television/cable (absent a TiVo type device), t…

Excellently written. A nitpick on your final point:

> Phones are an extension of our organ senses now. How will a world in which Things Come to Us and We Dont Go to Things anymore affect us cognitively long-term?

This may be looking at it backwards. Rampant smartphone addiction and overuse begins to shape all things in a "medium is the message" type of effect. The less need there is to physically "Go to the Thing" - whether the thing is the television room, office, movie theater, mailbox, rental store, newsstand, grocer, etc - the more natural it becomes to sit in place and let Things Come to You. If we accept everyone using their phone all the time as "the way things are now", the vicious cycle will continue.

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#170

Post by Zetobal »

Buttons840 wrote: post #146
c4mpute wrote: post #12

I think this is an eternal cycle. Maybe related to what has been called "enshittification", but not the same: Users will flock to a platform, make it their own. The platform will grow. Then the advertisers, professionals, and hucksters will swoop in, do their thing, and slowly overshadow the old "normal" users. Then old users will leave, leaving a wasteland of ads and glossy shiny. I'd like to call it "glossification…

HN loves to complain about Discord (with good reason), but Discord is anti-gloss. Small Discord communities can generate a lot of discussion, a lot of user generated content. Discord is also a poor place to do stealth advertising; if you post fake messages about how good your product is, those messages will just get buried and will never show up in a search result; it's not very effective. Things changed this year. W…

Discord is the windows 11 of chat apps. Ads and subscription begging behind every third click.
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