For a while, social media felt like the future. A place to build your brand, keep in touch, show your work, maybe even start a movement. Now? It feels more like something we endure. Something we have to manage, dodge, or detox from. Somewhere along the way, the magic drained out of the machine.
We may not be done with social media, but we’re certainly done being dazzled by it.
Welcome to the era of peak social media; not in terms of usage (which still staggers), but in terms of cultural centrality, enthusiasm, and emotional return on investment. The craze has crested. What’s left is a strange mix of fatigue, friction, and a few flickers of usefulness.
The Ascent and Saturation
Remember when Facebook connected college students and felt vaguely exclusive? When Twitter was witty instead of withering? When Instagram showed real life instead of rented Lambos and AI-enhanced abs?
The early 2010s were social media’s high-growth phase. Platforms seemed to promise community, discovery, even a kind of democratization. Everyone got a voice. You could connect with a CEO, a senator, or a stranger who shared your obscure interests.
But like any cultural phenomenon, social media reached a saturation point. More users meant more noise, which led to algorithms to manage it. Algorithms led to gamification, manipulation and dopamine loops. Suddenly, we weren’t using social media—we were being used by it.
When every brand, bot, and blowhard has a megaphone, it’s less a conversation and more a shouting match.
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The Splintering: Burnouts and Survivors
The landscape hasn’t just become overgrown—it’s begun to splinter. Some platforms are collapsing under the weight of their own contradictions, while others quietly regain relevance by doing less, not more.
Twitter/X
Once a digital salon of real-time wit, breaking news, and global conversation, Twitter has become an ideological battleground under erratic ownership. Bots roam free. “Engagement” often rewards the loudest, not the wisest.
Many of the smartest voices have logged off for good, and speaking as a guy with more than 8,000 followers who has been reluctant to let it all go, it is becoming less and less difficult to contemplate my own exit.
Over the years on Twitter, I have connected with so many cool folks, including childhood heroes, au courant celebs, thought leaders and like-minded folks…but now, on X, the mouth-breathing brownshirt types make using it feel like strategically walking over a kitchen floor of broken glass to get to the popsicles in the freezer.
Facebook
Now the digital equivalent of your hometown newspaper…if that paper were filled with conspiracy theories, high school reunion invites, people parrotting talking points from Fox News, and reposting memes. Its grip remains strong, especially among older users, but its cultural edge is gone. I think it’s going to die out like MySpace in about 10 more years.
If I didn’t use it to stay connected with my podcast and writing fans, I’d ditch it.
Instagram
What began as a fun photo-sharing app has morphed into a glossy, commercialized theater of influence. You’re not sharing your life—you’re curating a brand. The pivot to short-form video (read: copying TikTok) only amplified the performative pressure.
And don’t get me started on what it has done to teenage girls.
LinkedIn
Still professionally useful, but increasingly crowded with AI-written fluff, self-congratulatory leadership posts, and attempts to go viral by “being vulnerable.” I still love and defend this channel, but clearly the line between insight and posturing grows blurrier.
TikTok
TikTok is the current king of engagement, but at what cost? It is highly addictive, algorithmically precise, and often culturally influential, but it is also riddled with misinformation, time-wasting loops, and geopolitical concerns about data collection and content influence (aka spying on us and propagandizing our kids against the country).
There's brilliance here, but also burnout. My 16-year-old loved it for a while, but now she's actually embracing her school's new bell-to-bell smartphone ban and rediscovering the joy of getting lost in a good book.
Who knows? Maybe even this one will fade.
Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon
Each one is billed as the "Twitter killer," yet none have reached critical mass. Fragmented communities, interface quirks, and unclear value propositions make them feel more like experiments than destinations.
I do like Bluesky, which hasn’t been completely overrun by bots and trolls…yet.
Threads is outclassing an increasingly classless Twitter X lately in engagement and usage, but …blah. Being from the same folks who brought you Instagram makes me want to use it less, not more.
Enter Reddit: The Throwback With Traction
Amid this noise, Reddit—yes, Reddit—has quietly reemerged as a platform people actually want to use.
Its throwback design isn't a bug, it's a feature. Simplicity, topicality, and a lack of algorithmic manipulation make Reddit feel more grounded. You go there for answers, discussion, or a laugh, not to keep up appearances.
Recent cleanups of toxic subreddits and stronger moderation have helped polish its image. It's still rough around the edges, but that's part of its charm. It feels organic, not engineered for addiction.
“Reddit didn’t reinvent itself—it recommitted to what it was. And that may be exactly what people are looking for now.”
In a world of filter bubbles and shallow engagement, Reddit's message board format feels surprisingly like a healthier form of digital conversation.
The Human Toll: What the Experts Say
The emotional undercurrent to all of this isn’t just boredom. It’s burnout. And it’s backed by an emerging chorus of respected voices.
Esther Perel
Perel warns of artificial intimacy, the illusion of closeness generated by digital tools that substitute presence with pings. We mistake connectivity for connection, and it leaves us lonelier, not closer (source).
Sherry Turkle
Turkle’s research shows how we are increasingly “alone together”—hyperconnected but rarely engaged in meaningful conversation. The loss of in-person dialogue, she argues, weakens our ability to develop empathy and self-awareness (source).
Richard Reeves
Reeves argues that boys and men, already prone to shallower social networks, are disproportionately harmed by the drift to online interaction. Digital stand-ins often fail to meet emotional needs, leading to deeper isolation and withdrawal (source).
Jonathan Haidt
Haidt connects rising teen anxiety and depression to the hyper-social, screen-saturated environment created by smartphones and social media. He advocates for stronger boundaries and more offline experiences to help reverse the trend (source).
“We connected the world—and disconnected ourselves.”
A Double-Edged Sword
To be fair, social media still offers value.
It enables independent creators to reach audiences.
It gives marginalized voices a platform.
It helps journalists, academics, and professionals share insights and break news.
But the cost has gone up. The time tax. The attention drain. The emotional whiplash. What began as a helpful tool has become a psychological tether. And increasingly, people are asking whether the benefits still outweigh the burden.
The Shift: What’s Next?
We’re witnessing a quiet migration—not just away from social media, but toward something else.
Digital minimalism is gaining traction. (I'm heading that direction too—more on that here.)
Newsletters, podcasts, and blogs—long-form, slower, more thoughtful—are on the rise.
Private communities and niche forums are replacing the “town square” model with smaller, healthier rooms.
Email (improbably) is cool again.
And in the middle of this shift stands Substack, trying to be the best of everything.
A blog platform, a newsletter engine, a podcast host, a video channel, a social feed, and now even a chat room. It’s not perfect, but it’s tapping into something essential: the desire for less noise, more substance, and direct access between creators and their audiences.
Substack isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel—it’s stacking it. And for many, including me, that’s enough.
It’s a far cry from the algorithm-addled feeds of old. Instead of chasing virality, the emphasis is shifting toward trust, consistency and ownership.
After the Peak
Social media isn’t going away, but its status as the defining force in our digital lives is fading. Like reality TV, it still pulls in millions, but the novelty is gone and the cultural backlash has begun.
Maybe that’s a good thing.
We were promised connection, community, and creativity. Too often, we experience outrage, narcissism, and fatigue. The attention economy has turned us all into brands, but some of us are retiring.
So now what?
Maybe we treat our digital lives the way we treat our real ones: with intention, boundaries, and the occasional decision to just log off. Maybe we stop chasing “likes” and start chasing meaning.
After all, connection was never supposed to feel this exhausting.