Do We Still Need Social Media?
Do We Still Need Social Media?
Do We Still Need Social Media?
The question of whether we still need social media is less about individual preference and more about structure. These platforms present themselves as essential gateways to visibility, connection, and relevance. Yet their underlying logic has shifted so far from these ideals that it is worth asking whether they serve us at all.
When social media first emerged, it carried the promise of relation. Networks were framed as spaces where friends could stay in touch, professionals could exchange ideas, and creators could share their work directly. But over time, that promise was replaced by a different imperative: attention extraction. What appears as a social space is in practice an advertising system, where every interaction is tracked, ranked, and monetized. Visibility itself has become a form of inventory.
This change matters because it determines what kinds of expression are rewarded. Platforms value frequency over depth, speed over thought, engagement over coherence. A carefully written essay or poem is less likely to be seen than a short, catchy fragment designed to trigger rapid responses. The system does not measure the weight of an idea, only its circulation. For writers, artists, and teachers, this creates a constant misalignment. The very qualities that make work serious—time, complexity, resistance to simplification—are the ones that make it invisible on these platforms.
Even the appearance of visibility is deceptive. A large following does not guarantee that followers will see your work. Algorithms throttle reach, deciding what to display and what to bury. Posts that do appear often vanish within hours, drowned in the churn of feeds. What remains is the illusion of an audience, not the presence of one.
Beyond questions of visibility lies the issue of control. Accounts can be suspended or removed without warning, often by mistake, and with little chance of reversal. Years of work can be erased in an instant, subject to automated moderation systems that treat individuals as expendable. To depend on these platforms is to build on unstable ground.
The cultural effect is a narrowing of possibilities. When expression is shaped by advertising incentives, thought itself becomes thinner. Serious conversation is displaced by performance, presence by metrics. To remain in these spaces is to accept their terms, even when they erode the very work one is trying to sustain.
Do we need this? The evidence suggests not. Alternatives exist. A personal site can hold writing, video, or art in a coherent archive, free of interruption. A podcast can build continuity without being bent around sponsorship. Even if discovery is slower, the attention it produces is more deliberate. Outside the platform economy, presence is smaller but truer.
The real question, then, is not what we lose when we leave social media, but what we regain: autonomy over our work, freedom from metrics, and the possibility of building archives that endure. To step away is not to vanish. It is to refuse a system that mistakes circulation for meaning, and to rebuild the conditions under which meaning can appear.