Have social media platforms optimized the "social" part out of social media?

Something I've been thinking about lately: most major social apps seem to be getting better and better at showing us content, but not necessarily at helping us actually interact with people.

Instagram, TikTok, X, and even parts of Reddit increasingly feel like consumption products first recommendation algorithms, short-form video, creators broadcasting to audiences, endless scrolling.

But some of the best interactions I still have online happen in smaller group chats where people actually go back and forth, argue about random things, send dumb memes, plan stuff, and build up years of shared context.

It makes me wonder what the next genuinely social platform would even look like.

Would you want another public feed with a better algorithm? Or something more centered around smaller conversations and communities?

And with AI becoming part of everything, would you actually want AI inside those conversations not replacing people, but remembering context, pulling up facts when people are debating something, helping make plans, recommending things based on the group, etc.?

Or does introducing AI automatically make a social space feel less human?

Curious what people here think the next real shift in social will be: better discovery, smaller/private communities, AI-assisted conversations, something completely different?

FYI, part of this curiosity comes from trying a bunch of newer social apps and also experimenting with an early-stage social product myself. They are all still in internal testing, so I'm mostly trying to understand how other people think about this space before forming too strong an opinion.

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Recreation_Travel28•about 3 hours ago•1

Your'e absolutely right, that's why in initial phases telegram was amazing, now it's more like broadcast groups only, rarely people talk. Here on reddit as well, it feels like thrown conversations. Like someone will post, and then people will come throughout the day week or months and comment, there is actually no conversation happening. I generally have whatsapp, but really use something if AI could make it more fun and let my groups active somehow with other people. As meta AI sucks now.

B3N0U•about 2 hours ago•1

The shift is that platforms now rank on watch time, not conversation. Tiktok and reels don't care if anyone replies, they care if you stay on the feed. So creators learned to win the first second instead of the reply thread. That's why feeds feel like consumption now, the incentives changed under us.

FPLDPS•about 1 hour ago•1

Good points, especially the part about social media becoming less about actual conversation and more about people just consuming.

The problem isn't just that people don't talk as much anymore - social media has made it easy to participate without actually interacting with anyone

You can watch something, leave a comment in a sarcastic and demeaning way, agree with whatever the "cool kids" have already decided, attack the unpopular opinion, and then move on.

Reddit especially can become very hive mind-like. Once a certain opinion takes hold in a thread, people often aren't really discussing it anymore. They're reinforcing it, voting accordingly, and piling onto whoever goes against it. None of that actually requires you to engage with the person on the other side of the screen. That's where what you said about smaller groups being more enjoyable comes into play - fewer people means less herding behavior.

I also think some of the responsibility falls on the moderators and admins of individual communities.

Obviously they can't change how Reddit's algorithm works or what the platform itself rewards, but they absolutely can influence what becomes normal inside their own community. What gets enforced matters, but so does what repeatedly gets allowed to slide.

If sarcastic dismissals, dogpiling or attempts to shut down an unpopular opinion are constantly allowed to slide, they eventually become normal. People figure out pretty quickly what kind of discussion that community rewards. And the people who actually want to have a real back and forth either adapt to that culture or eventually stop bothering.

AI definitely adds another layer to all of this too, especially now that people can generate posts and comments without putting much thought into either one. But I don't think AI created the problem. Social media was already moving in this direction before generative AI became mainstream.

If anything, AI just makes it even easier to look like you're participating without actually engaging with anyone.

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