Is the end of social media near?

I wanted to write something about my feelings and thoughts around social media. Instead, I wrote an essay.

Reading time: about 9 minutes

Social media exists because humans crave connection—one of our most fundamental desires. Not too long ago, about thirty years back, our connections were almost solely face-to-face: family dinners, chats with colleagues, meet-ups with friends, neighbours, and fellow sports enthusiasts. But with the internet boom in the late 1990s, our way of connecting started to shift. While we were spending more time online, tech companies saw an opportunity to bring a social element to the digital space. But as we embraced this new way of connecting, we also began to lose a bit of our humanity.

Replacing connection

Growing up during the early days of the internet, I had a front-row seat to its evolution. As a web designer and early adopter, I was always excited about the latest developments.
I started blogging at fourteen, dipping my toes into what would become the vast ocean of social media. It was exciting to post something online and see people respond. Beyond the technical marvels, it was the sense of belonging that truly reeled me in. Online, I found my ‘tribe’—people who were like me, sharing the same quirks and passions (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, anyone?). The digital realm became a safe space, making me feel less isolated. Next came message boards and online communities, each step making it easier to forge connections. It evolved into Facebook and Instagram, each platform enhancing our ability to reach out and resonate with others.

There was a moment when we probably collectively thought, "Why meet in person when you can update everyone about your life on social media?" This marked a cultural shift. We began to spend less time offline, immersing ourselves in our online personas. Social media became our main stage for social interactions, often at the cost of real-world connections. This shift has profoundly changed how we engage with each other, highlighting the complexities and trade-offs of our digital lives.

Companies like Instagram have masterfully persuaded us to spend more and more time on their apps by making them as addictive as possible. We've reached a point where we've become dependent on these platforms, whether it’s for keeping in touch with friends, or running entire businesses.
On average, we spend 5.5 hours each day staring at our screens—time that could be spent meeting friends or family. Yet, we’d rather watch a series of Instagram stories during our lunch break than have a chat with a colleague.

The impact on us

But slowly, we are beginning to realise that social media is largely taking over our lives and we’re starting to understand the profound impact it has on us. It’s not just about the precious hours it consumes—a fact we can easily verify with a quick glance at our screen time tracker—but it’s also about the toll it takes on our mental health. Many are struggling under the weight of incessant scrolling. We’re beginning to witness the stark consequences of the binary thinking that social media fosters: it’s polarising our political landscape and puts leaders in places they don’t belong.

The big wave of artists quitting Instagram in 2023 did not surprise me: I, too, was spending hours a day on the app and it kept me from making actual art. Hours when I wasn't creating art, writing, or illustrating the children's book I've wanted to complete for over a decade. Trying to find validation, more often than not I created work I hoped would resonate with an audience, building a portfolio that didn’t align with what I wanted to create. It pains me to think about how many books I could have written or paintings I could have made if I hadn't spent so much time on social media.
On the flip side, Instagram enabled me to build an entire career as an illustrator, providing a livelihood for years. There are always two sides to every coin. It has brought me the kind of success I thought I wanted, but wasn’t truly looking for in hindsight.

Up until a few years ago, it was possible to have a significant reach with an app like Instagram. I was a big advocate of the platform, even offering workshops to other professionals on how best to use Instagram for marketing.
For ten years, I received pretty much all of my commissions through Instagram and didn’t even have a portfolio website—there simply was no need for one. It felt it was worth spending those hours on Instagram, because it rewarded me with paid commissions for clients and therefore a stable financial situation. Because besides the need for connections, having a roof over your head and food on the table is something we crave as humans.

Nowadays, I get maybe half the jobs I usually would get via Instagram. Posting something online feels like shooting in the dark—most of it misses its target, and occasionally it garners some engagement. Initially, I thought I was doing something wrong, or maybe my work had gone out of fashion. Perhaps I was passé as an illustrator and would be better off finding a 'normal' job. But with few exceptions, almost every artist on Instagram is experiencing this decline. It’s not you; it’s the capitalistic shit show we are in.

Opting out of Instagram

Now that Instagram is made up of half advertisements and you see very few posts from people you actually follow, many are calling quits. People who once spend hours a day crafting content are opting out, and rightfully so. Why spend time in a place that gives you nothing in return?

Social media once fulfilled a very important need of humans: connection. But the company’s owners clearly have lost the plot and forgot what it was about. It no longer fulfils our need for connection, and there is too much advertising and noise for meaningful conversations and connections to flourish. This applies not only to individuals but also to entrepreneurs who used to reach their customers through these platforms. You might have once been able to earn a living through social media, but for most of us that era is rapidly coming to an end.

An Instagram post generally has a lifespan of 21 hours. In that brief window, it has to go viral to have a longer impact. To me, that feels like wasted time compared to creating something with a longer shelf life. A blog post for example will last 1-2 years. Why would I spend time in a place where it probably doesn’t even get seen, and even when it does, people will have forgotten about it the next day?

I had hoped Substack would satisfy my need for connection, much like the early days of Instagram did. But while Substack feels a lot nicer to me, is still a social media channel. When they rolled out Notes I couldn’t help but sigh loudly… Another Twitter-wannabe. Even on here, I feel the pressure to produce 'content' in the hope that people will see me. I will spend hours on writing posts like this one and wonder simultaneously if it’s worth my valuable time. If I were a full time writer and writing would be my vocation, I’d probably say ‘yes’, but I’m not. I’m an artist whose mission is to make people feel more connected to themselves and thereby to others. But what’s the best place for that?

Lately, I've been asking myself whether our need for connection can be fulfilled online at all. Have we, as humans, simply forgotten what it feels like to be genuinely seen and heard by others, having spent so much of our lives online? Do we remember what true connection feels like, or have we been dulled by the omnipresence of social media?

The perks of being human

Social media has become a space where nuance is a rare commodity. That world has turned increasingly black and white, and the idea of not having an opinion on something is virtually unheard of. Online, you’re expected to speak out on every issue because 'silence is consent.' Yet, the real world isn’t so binary.

We tend to forget that we’re not just living online and that we cannot form our opinions about someone we have only seen perform on social media. We are humans with real lives and real problems. There’s so much we don’t show online and it would be unrealistic (and quite frankly: stupid) to judge someone solely on their social media feed.

When you’re living in the real world, there’s space to reflect, to choose which global issues to engage with and which to leave to others, and to have genuine conversations. In reality, people who think differently or live differently aren’t necessarily villains in need of cancellation. Where social media can feel like a space where everything is black and white, the real world is full of colours.

What surprises me most is how little space there is on social media to be oneself. The internet used to be my haven, a place where I felt seen. In the ‘real’ world, I often felt like an outsider, but online, I found kindred spirits. Perhaps that’s why I now feel the need to distance myself from social media—I no longer feel welcome there.

Reconnecting for me means going offline now. It’s about talking to real people and picking up on the subtleties of a conversation just by looking at someone. It’s about making literal space for one another and not passing judgment based on a single sentence or photo, but seeing the whole picture. We also understand ourselves better if we can reflect in the presence of others.
Social media once offered that space, but it is closing its shutters offering only a very small chance to see others and yourself reflected. Because it’s such a familiar place where we felt we could have that, we still try and find it, even if we have to crawl for it.

It would be naive to think that Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg isn’t aware that Instagram’s golden days are fading. Introducing AI training to Instagram feels to me like a final attempt to squeeze every last penny out of its users, the very people who’ve made him billions.
This move towards AI, replacing human interaction with generated images and texts, threatens to extinguish the last bits of genuine connection. From someone like Zuckerberg, who seems like someone devoid of humanity and does look a bit like an AI in human form, this isn’t surprising. But what does surprise me is the widespread enthusiasm for replacing human art with AI art by fellow humans. I wonder if our need for humanity and connection is collectively fading away, or if we just don’t understand the impact of removing the human touch in art and writing.

Count me in

For those who still crave for genuine human connection, with all its messiness and beauty, count me in. I’m done with presenting myself online as a product and squeezing into predefined boxes. I’m done feeling like an island in a sea of other islands, with no bridges being built between us.

I long for authenticity and sincerity. I long for interactions with real people, not algorithms, robots, or tech companies steering me in directions I don’t want to go. I want to reclaim the driver’s seat of my own life, inviting along those who genuinely appreciate the journey.

PS: I’m not disappearing from the internet. It will just no longer be the main task in my life anymore. I’ll continue to write on Substack and my monthly newsletter.

Previous post on social media:

Is Instagram holding me back?

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