I recently had a baby. My wife and I are not on socials but wanted to share pics with close friends and family, so we created an iCloud shared album. We only realized that these shared albums had likes and comments once someone asked us if we had seen that my grandmother had left a comment.

I think the shared album is almost the perfect form of social media. We invited about 20 people who we all know well. This “community” has a singular and shared purpose of being interested in our baby. Content is presented in chronological order. There are no ads, no other content, not even suggested posts or “you may also like…”. If you want to see more you just swipe to the next picture and perhaps read what other people you know have to say about the funny face our child is making.

The author observes that social media creates bubbles and that people are tired of socializing. In some ways the shared album is the ultimate bubble and provides only a very limited way for our community to socialize. Nonetheless many of our friends, also twenty-somethings, have told us how lovely it is to interact with us and each other on such a limited platform.

I think—well, maybe I hope—that the future of social media is “hyperlocal” like this. It will not be as easy to meet people and find new perspectives, sure, but it will let the internet serve its purpose of connecting people who are physically far away but still very much in each others thoughts.