Title: How Your Social Media Feeds and Habits Have Changed

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We're going to close out today in our last 15 minutes or so with a call in on how your use of social media is changing as social media becomes more commercial and less personal. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. How your use of social media is changing, it may just be that you're using it less, as social media becomes more commercial and less personal. Why do we ask? Well, earlier this month, New Yorker staff writer Kyle Chayka published a piece titled Are You Experiencing Posting Ennui? Posting ennui. It highlighted how far social media has drifted from its original intent. Remember when Instagram, Twitter, Facebook were new to everybody's lives? These platforms were sold to us as a means to connect with friends and family, right? Maybe especially Facebook, but these others as well. Perhaps you would encounter an old classmate that you lost contact with, or a childhood friend who moved across the country, or just keep up with your relatives who didn't live around the block.

Our feeds were filled with people we knew in real life sharing even maybe mundane parts of the day, right? "Look, what a great sandwich I made." You've all had and maybe done yourself posts like that. We in turn posted photos of our breakfast or a funny image we saw on the subway. It was all very casual, but now, "A sea of influencers and creators aspiring to varying degrees of high-budget polish, headlines announcing the latest horrors of international wars, images, videos, text generated by AI, unmitigated trolling and attention farming catered to users or now caters to users' deep-seated fears, and more or less sanctioned by the platforms themselves." That's a quote from Kyle Chaika's article in the New Yorker.

Does this sound like you? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Does this sound like your experience? In that context, it's a call in on how your use of social media is changing as social media itself becomes more commercial and less personal. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. This isn't just about older people who are like, "Social media, meh." Jacob found that both Millennials and Gen Z are experiencing a new reluctance to post. Some of his subjects cited suspicions about oversharing, which makes sense in a time where casual doxing occurs all the time.

Younger participants who never experienced the casual era of social media talked about the pressure to formulaically curate their posts in order to project ideas or images about the quality of their lives and look so beautiful or whatever and fit in with the professional posters. Listeners, we are posing the question of Chayka's piece to you now. Are you experiencing posting ennui? Do you still share casual moments from your everyday life on social media, if you once did?

Do you see your friends and family posting on social media the way they did as the algorithms churn of influencers, ads, AI slop, professional posts of all kinds dissuaded you from posting? Maybe you've become an influencer yourself after first doing it for personal use. Tell us your story. 212-433- WNYC, 212-433-9692. It's a call in on how your use of social media is changing as social media becomes more commercial, more professionalized, and less personal. Tell us your story. 212-433-WNYC call or text. 212-433-9692. We'll hear your stories right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your calls and texts on how your use of social media is changing as social media becomes more commercial, more professional, and less personal. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Joseph in Westchester, you're on WNYC. Hi, Joseph.

Joseph: Hey, Brian. Good to talk to you.

Brian Lehrer: Tell us your story.

Joseph: I'm 35. I was in high school when Twitter came out. I was very on the forefront of social media. A few years ago, like three, four years ago, I just deleted all the social media. I've never regretted it. I've never looked back. There were all sorts of reasons holding me on for a long time. I'm off social media entirely. One of the things that kind of inspired me was this sort of fringe Internet theory called dead Internet theory, that a lot of what we consume and see, a lot of the comments that are made may not even be generated by real human people. That what's sold to us as real interaction could be a lot of this like AI slop or bots. I just want to throw that out there as an influence on me.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think that you're relatively alone in your social circles for cutting it off that much?

Joseph: Yes. I know people cut back. I know my wife uses the time restriction features on her iPhone that remind you you've been on it for this much time. I think a lot of people are limiting it around me, but very few have cut it out entirely.

Brian Lehrer: Joseph, thank you very much. Couple of texts that are coming in on how people are using social media. Listener writes, "I've begun posting factual news via Facebook stories, temporary posts, and relating and linking to articles that I assume or know that right-wing media sources aren't covering. I have family and other Facebook friends who have been taken in by right-wing media lies. This has become a way to get facts to them."

Another one on Instagram Stories says, "Ever since Instagram rolled out Stories, my story has become for casual posts and my actual posts are more formal. Yes, overall my Instagram is far less casual than it was when I joined at age 12. I'm 24 now." Eric in Wyckoff. Oh, Eric clicked off there just as I was clicking him on. How about Fella in Brooklyn? Oh, you know what? I think something's going on with my clicker. Control room, maybe you can try Shelley in Greenpoint on line nine, so I don't disconnect Shelley. Hi, Shelley, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Shelley: Hello. Wow. I called before and never made it to actually speak with you. I use Facebook very often. In fact, I came in contact with a friend who I know from junior-- No, from sixth grade. I just went to visit her. Aside from that, I often post things that I need for music and somebody recently, for free, said they would take a record of mine and make it digital. These are Facebook friends, and I cannot leave them. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: How do you kind of deal either just sort of psychologically and emotionally or online itself with your behavior, with all the commercialization, all the professionalization? Do you just look past it as you continue to use it to connect with people you know?

Shelley: Frankly, I don't get a lot of announcements, advertisements on Facebook.

Brian Lehrer: Good. I'm going to go onto another caller, but you're going to have to share your secrets with everybody else. Maybe the next time you call. Fella in Brooklyn called us back. I think we've got you on the air now, Fella. You're on WNYC. Hello?

Fella: Hey, Brian, can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Fella: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I was just going to say, in my experience at least, I'm a photographer and a DJ. I've used social media. I used Facebook, Instagram. We would use it to have these genuine interactions with people where you would share something, you'd be able to connect with people. In the moment, it feels like all that has been lost in a way to where you don't really get to benefit from sharing your work in the same way as we used to in the past. The algorithms, at this point, it seems like they work against us if it knows we're trying to market ourselves unless we're paying for it. That's what I've noticed, at least.

Brian Lehrer: Fella, thank you very much. Let's go on to Solomon in Bayonne. You're on WNYC. Hi, Solomon.

Solomon: Hi, Brian. Long time, first time. I'm relatively young. I'm 20 years old. I grew up with social media my entire life, but I feel like my peers and as I'm growing older, my peers and especially myself find that inherently social media is something that we absolutely need to limit. There's this concept of doom scrolling that I'm not sure you're familiar with where you just endlessly consuming content for hours on end. [unintelligible 00:10:23]

Brian Lehrer: That's a lot of news-oriented content, actually. Looking for the worst thing, think you're being victimized by Trump or the country is, looking for the worst thing that Trump is doing now or any other kind of doom scrolling along those lines. That's common doom scrolling.

Solomon: Yes, absolutely. It goes back to the algorithms too, because these companies know that manufacturing outrage or getting people angry keeps people on these apps. That's definitely something I've observed over the last couple years, especially post COVID.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you one follow up question, and then actually that's going to be the last word in the segment. Here you are as a 20 year old who's already become disillusioned with social media you grew up with. Listener texts, "Everyone talks about the youth on social media, but I think the boomers are hooked on it. My mom is 80. She is on her phone all the time." As you look at older people in your family, do you think that's the case? It's actually now different from what it may have been 10 years ago. The older people who remain hooked on social media in the most reflexive way.

Solomon: I do think younger people and older people definitely consume social media in very different ways. I noticed that older people in my family are a lot more susceptible to watching AI videos, for example, and fully believing that I was real throughout. I definitely agree.

Brian Lehrer: The misinformation. Because maybe they're more used to information having been true. Solomon, thank you for your call. Call us again. That's the Brian Lehrer Show for today. Thanks for your interesting calls on your changing use of social media these days. Stay tuned for Alison.

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