The Last Days Of Social Media By James O’Sullivan, September 2, 2025 Social media, once hailed as the great connector, now delivers exhaustion amid a flood of synthetic, low-quality content designed solely to grab attention. This essay explores the decline of authentic social engagement online and the emergence of a fragmented, more intentional digital future. --- The Current State: Drowning in Synthetic Content Feed Saturation: Social media feeds are increasingly dominated by AI-generated spam, copycat accounts promoting scams, and repetitive clickbait, drowning genuine human content. AI Spam & Bots: Facebook and others are inundated with machine-written posts, often boosted by algorithms, injecting disinformation and meaningless content. Bot-Girl Economy: Automated, semi-human personas (many tied to platforms like OnlyFans) commodify intimacy and interaction, blending real humans with bots for monetization. Engagement Collapse: Despite content proliferation, user interaction rates have plummeted (e.g., Facebook and X engagement down to ~0.15%). Users scroll compulsively but rarely connect meaningfully. --- The Great Unbundling: Users Seeking Smaller Spaces Once-monolithic platforms are splintering as user growth slows or declines (e.g., X shed 15% of users post-Musk, Threads’ active users collapsed dramatically). Alternatives like group chats, Discord servers, federated microblogs, and paywalled communities (e.g., Patreon, Substack) offer slower, smaller-scale, more intimate connections. These new digital "gardens" emphasize trust and retention over viral scale and surface-level engagement. Established platforms have begun emphasizing direct messages and private circles, acknowledging the limits of infinite scrolling feeds saturated with bots. --- Attention Economy to Exhaustion The initial promise of connection has inverted into compulsive consumption and burnout. Many users, especially younger ones, are aware that large portions of online content are fake or AI-generated but continue scrolling out of habit or anxiety suppression. “Dopamine detox” and “digital Sabbaths” are now common coping mechanisms. Creators face pressure competing with AI-generated content and automation, leading some to quit. Social media participation has become a necessity for social, professional, and economic inclusion, making non-participation a form of self-exile few can afford. --- Toward New Architectures of Intention The future lies in a fracturing of the social web into intentional spaces—group chats, encrypted rooms, federated platforms—where context, connection, and choice flourish. Introducing deliberative friction—design elements that slow interaction to foster reflection rather than reflex—would counter compulsive scrolling. Examples: posting delays, time-spent warnings, carbon cost displays. Platforms like Are.na reject algorithmic feeds, encouraging manual, thoughtful curation. The shift demands treating users as citizens in a shared public space, not just engagement units to be optimized. --- Governance and Public-Service Models Proposes treating social media platforms as public utilities with transparent, accountable governance: Public audits of algorithms. User representation on oversight boards. Revenue models not dependent on surveillance ads. Civic mandates to enhance democratic discourse. Current efforts (Meta Oversight Board, X Community Notes) are limited add-ons, not systemic. Decentralization through protocols like ActivityPub (Mastodon), Bluesky's AT Protocol, and blockchain platforms could help, but require governance "scaffolding" for stability and accountability. Universal algorithm choice should become a user right, allowing toggling among chronological, local, mutual-first, or curated feeds. Risks include perpetuating power asymmetries via curated recommendations and ideological silos without