Social Media Isn't Dead - It's just Unrecognisable. Here's Why.

The Creative Bloq article "Erm, just checking but social media's dead now, right?" tackles the provocative question of social media's demise, concluding it's not dead but fundamentally transformed beyond recognition from its early ideals. The piece leverages Mark Zuckerberg's own strategic pivot towards the metaverse as tacit acknowledgement that the original social media model is faltering.

The core argument dismantles the ‘death’ hyperbole while highlighting a profound shift. Public sharing, the cornerstone of early platforms like Facebook, is in decline. Users increasingly retreat to private messaging apps (WhatsApp, Messenger, Signal) for genuine connection, finding public feeds performative, overwhelming, or algorithmically distorted. Platforms themselves prioritize algorithmic curation over chronological feeds, favouring engagement (often controversy-driven) and monetization (shopping, ads) over organic social interaction. Features like Stories and Reels, while popular, represent a move towards fleeting, disposable content rather than sustained community building.

Zuckerberg's heavy investment in the metaverse is presented as the ultimate admission that the traditional social media gold rush is over. Meta seeks new frontiers because the old model – reliant on ever-increasing public sharing and ad saturation – faces saturation and user fatigue. The "town square" vision has fragmented.

Therefore, the article asserts social media isn't extinct; it's mutated. Its original purpose – open, public sharing connecting friends and family – is arguably dying or dead. What remains is a complex ecosystem dominated by private chats, algorithmically curated feeds packed with ads and commercial content, entertainment snippets, and platforms desperately seeking the next revenue stream (like Zuckerberg's metaverse gamble).

Amongst my creative friends and work colleagues the enthusiasm for SM has certainly wained. Whilst once there was a belief that IG was an important piece of marketing and self promotion my IG feed is devoid of many DOP’s, photographers and other creatives I followed. So much so that I’ve switched my account to ‘private’ and have not posted anything for the past year.

The essence of ‘social’ has irrevocably changed, making the original concept feel obsolete even as the platforms themselves persist.

https://www.creativebloq.com/design/social-media/erm-just-checking-but-social-medias-dead-now-right-even-mark-zuckerberg-knows-it