alt Hacker NewsThe numbers just don't support this, though? Social media remains at an all time high in engagement numbers. And climbing.
What is also growing is the number of people signaling that they are out of it.
This is extra pernicious because the people that are staying in control of these environments are maintaining a large amount of leverage over everyone.
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The phenomenon I'm describing is people switching to consumption-only mode, or only posting privately. I think you're right that engagement is going up, as people treat social media more like TV and less like microblogging. I define that as "checking out."
It's just a huge change from the early days of social media (Instagram 1.0, Flickr, Twitter, o.g. Facebook), where nearly everybody who was active on the platform was also posting.
The makeup of the numbers is shifting radically.
20 years ago, ~all Facebook users were organic real life social networks chatting with each other online.
It's not gone yet, but for many years, that "organic social network" usage segment has been declining.
The commercially motivated "social media influencer marketing" segment has been growing faster than the "organic" segment has been declining.
The numbers ... support at the very least a flattening of growth. See "Americans’ Social Media Use 2025" <https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/11/20/americans-so...>.
Note that that survey asks what social media U.S. adults ever use. Time on site, trending over years, would be more interesting to see, but I'm having trouble finding any recent research.
I have seen indications that Twitter is actively shedding both readers and time-on-site, and that Facebook/Meta numbers are strongly buoyed by purchases (WhatsApp, Instagram). Others I'm not so familiar with.