Instagram

Recently I looked at Instagram and I noticed that almost all of the “content” is vertical videos. When I look at Facebook and TikTok I notice the same thing. Yesterday I noticed that Bluesky were promoting that they have ten minute videos. I think all of these people have forgotten that we’re using antisocial media to connect with others, not to watch long videos.

Of course, there is a very good reason for allowing longer and longer videos. Ads. If we watch a video that is several minutes long we are likely to stick around during the ad break to see the end of the video. The longer a video is, the more ads we see, and the more committed we are not to skip them, or force quit the app.

For many years I would go for a hike, a via ferrata, scuba diving and more and I would take photos. I would then share them on Instagram to friends, colleagues and family. Facebook then bought Instagram and within a few months it went from being a social network built around our friends, colleagues and family to a network of influencers sharing irrelevant trash. Between that trash we would get ads. Within half a year I dumped Facebook controlled Instagram because the community that I used Instagram had been deliberately destroyed.

Threads, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok are social media sites and apps rather than social networks. Their aim is not to promote conversations but rather to encourage likes, re-sharing and the cult of personality. It is for this reason that they have become less ‘sticky’ for normal ‘users’.

In the era of Seesmic around 2007 we had video conversations, and parties, and we met up at LeWeb in Paris and other events. We were a network of friends of friends who kept contact for years afterwards.

In 2006-2007 when Jaiku and Forums had threads, these made conversations flow. When Twitter was a chatroom conversations flowed too, until the arrival of the hashtag. The issue with the hashtag is that it brought in people who are toilet social media browsers, rather than habitual social media participants. I could have written users, but that is part of the issue with Social Media and Utilitarianism.

Two decades ago, back in 2007 or so I thought about the conversation about ROI for PR firms, brands and more on Twitter and every time I asked, “But what about ROI for human beings, normal users?” Twitter and company spent so much time worrying about marketers and those that want to use, rather than appreciate social media that, in the end, all social networks became cesspits, rather than social networks.

A day or two I opened the Instagram app and I scrolled down without seeing a single photo so I deleted the app from my phone. There was a time when instagram was a photo sharing network between friends, and friends of friends. Now it has become a video spamming platform for influencers we have never, and will never met. In essence it has become worthless, hence the uninstall.

I noticed that Threads was also saturated in video. If YouTube, FB, instagram and Threads have reels then we have four video sharing sites that share the same functionality. We have gone from having chats on Threads, and photo sharing on Instagram to a TikTok experience everywhere.

When videos are older, or are not viewed often their quality will be downgraded until they are either viewed regularly or never at all. This decision showstype: posts that Instagram is forgetting that it should promote net neutrality rather than a two tier system where influencers get the red carpet, and normal human beings are treated badly.

The idea of Net Neutrality is that all content is delivered from all sources to all people at the highest available speed and quality available. By choosing to downgrade old, less viewed content Instagram is instilling a two tier system that rewards influencers and clickbait, to the detriment of posts by normal people.

Over the years I have subscribed to hundreds of podcasts, YouTube channels, people on Instagram TikTok and more. I then stopped subscribing, and sometimes like, but never when I’m asked to by the content creators. The short reason for not liking and subscribing now is that if I subscribe I usually grow tired with the content and stop watching, so my subscription is an illusion. The reason I don’t “like” plenty of videos is simply that the videos are not worth a like.

Today I read from Techcrunch and The Verge that there are new tools to limit things so that people can only get comments from friends and family. The irony isn’t lost on me.

The irony I’m thinking about is that we have built a social media landscape where the content from strangers floods our timelines without us wanting to see it. Rather than just give us chronological timelines with posts from our friends, they add mitigation factors for slowing down and stopping harrasment.

Recently my Social Media Life has become dormant. I do visit Facebook every so often but I ignore Instagram, barely touch Mastodon or the fediverse, and in general have stopped looking at social media for a social life. It’s not that my life offline has become vibrant. It’s that online is empty of meaningful engagement, especially in winter.

From the nineties right up to around 2018 or so social media was a place to meet and be social. It’s during the pandemic that social media seemed to die. I think that social media relies on meeting people in the physical world to have value. People on the social web use it when they’re on the toilet, or waiting for something else to happen. They’re just filling small gaps in their schedule.

For those of us living in Europe we now have the option of paying for Facebook and Instagram, not to see ads. In theory this is fantastic and we should be jumping on the opportunity.

I don’t feel that way. I had plenty of conversations, with uni friends, colleagues and more, until Zynga brought Farmville. When Farmville spammed our timelines and killed all conversations the value of Facebook as social network was destroyed because instead of conversing and networking we were taking care of virtual farms. We went from spending time with friends to wasting our online time. Our social bonds degraded and Facebook went from being social to being lonely.