Why is Social Media Not Social Anymore?
Lately, I've been thinking about how different the internet feels. Not just louder or faster, but lonelier. And I don't say this as a critic on the outside looking in, I say this as someone who recently re-entered the space, trying to show up as a freelancer, a parent, a person with ideas and something to share.
How it started...
I remember when we could "poke" our friends on Facebook, and my very first profile picture was just a template bunch of flowers. We didn't have a feed but posted on a 'wall' like a virtual noticeboard. This was back in 2006 when social media still felt like a novelty, and smartphones, as we know them now, were only just starting to germinate in Steve's mind.
For those of us who didn't have a desktop at home (never mind a personal laptop), the nearest cyber café was the go-to. I'd spend hours amongst noisy gamers, noseying through friends' activity, checking who added who or who viewed my profile(?!), and posting a vague status about my mood or what song I was listening to.
But here's the thing. That was a time when young people were still actively hanging out together. We were regulars at the cinema, night clubs, study groups, shopping centres, or just lazing at each other's houses over the weekend. So why did Facebook explode the way it did? What made it start replacing face-to-face (ironically) interactions and reach a 100 million users within 2 years of becoming available to the public?
The short answer: CONNECTION. The shared interests. The silly little conversation starters. Those cheeky interactive features (how much of your time on FB was actually spent customising your profile page?) made the platform feel spontaneous, communal, and fun. More importantly, it linked us: friends, family, strangers across borders, time zones, and day-to-day lives.
Which brings me to a question I've found myself asking since reactivating a long-dormant Instagram profile and joining TikTok a couple of months ago to promote my freelance services. To be fair, Instagram was only ever meant to be a placeholder while I got my business website sorted. And I'll admit I was highly sceptical of TikTok which I thought was just loud, chaotic, and for teenagers.
But over the weeks, something struck me. It wasn't that my own amateur attempts weren't gaining traction but the general lack of real interaction. Especially between small business owners and their audiences. Posts would go up, sure. A comment? Yes. But conversations? Not so much.
We can lay blame on the algorithms, and yes, they do favour the frivolous, the fast-paced, and the formulaic. But honestly, I think we've started taking our socials for granted. We show up expecting reach, engagement, maybe even conversion without always offering much in return.
The platforms have become places we broadcast from, rather than spaces we participate in.
That quiet disconnect and growing absence of genuine interaction is part of what inspired me to start ElleContent. It began as a simple idea: to reconnect communities with the small businesses that shape them. Not through hard-selling or shouting into the void, but through thoughtful, human-centred storytelling that values presence over performance. I believe there's still room for meaningful connection online. We've just have to be intentional about it.
If you've read this far, then stay tuned! I'll be sharing some gentle, practical ways we can bring the social back into social media.