The New Social Media Divide

Hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving with friends and family. I’ve found the past few weeks a good time to reflect on how I consume information and, more broadly, how I spend my time. So far, one thing has become clear: I’m using Twitter and Facebook less.

In the past month, I’ve found myself going to Twitter and Facebook News Feed only to bounce once I see a wash of stories—and more often opining—about a topic I feel like I’ve frankly heard enough of. I’d chalk this up to general election overload and predict I’ll feel differently soon. But it’s not just election fatigue. It’s not just news fatigue. It’s a broader social media fatigue.

I believe this is happening for two reasons. The first is the nature of the services themselves. As Facebook moves to boost engagement and advertising revenue by showing more public content from big brands, versus posts from my friends, it feels more like entertainment. The same is true of Twitter which—because I tend to follow people in my industry—remains an echo chamber I check in on more as a distraction than an information source.