Are Social Media Platforms the Next Dying Malls?
The article compares the decline of shopping malls to social media platforms, highlighting their failure to foster genuine community, oversaturation, negative behavior, and a shift towards seeking real communities.
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The article draws a parallel between the decline of shopping malls and the current state of social media platforms, suggesting that both are artificial constructs that fail to foster genuine community. The author reflects on the negative impact of malls in his hometown, which were built with the promise of economic growth but ultimately led to crime and abandonment. Similarly, social media platforms attract users based on the presence of others rather than meaningful engagement, leading to a fragile community structure. The oversaturation of social media platforms mirrors the excessive construction of malls in the 1980s, resulting in competition that dilutes user loyalty. The author notes that many platforms have become indistinguishable from one another, offering similar content and experiences, which diminishes their appeal. Furthermore, both malls and social media have become havens for negative behavior, undermining the potential for positive community building. The article concludes with a call to seek out real, vibrant communities instead of relying on these artificial environments, suggesting that a shift away from social media is already underway as people seek healthier alternatives.
- Social media platforms are compared to dying malls, both failing to create genuine community.
- Oversaturation of platforms leads to competition that weakens user loyalty.
- Many social media sites have become indistinguishable, offering similar content and experiences.
- Both malls and social media attract negative behavior, hindering community building.
- A shift towards real communities is anticipated as users grow wary of social media.
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8 commentsThis is a good thing for social networks, not bad. The model of everyone being in the same place is what's failed. Twitter and Reddit became entrenched enough to turn hostile to their users. The passive will stay with those, but the deliberate are now able to seek out the community that suits them. It's good that there's more selection. It would be a big failure if the whole eternal September migrated to Mastodon or Bluesky or some other single place.
We've long known that smaller communities are higher quality. "Too many" choices ensures we'll avoid the failure of recreating Twitter elsewhere.
The author of the piece is thinking about their "vocation". If people advertising their blog are discouraged from joining the new spaces, that just preserves them for more organic communication and less self promotion.
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