The social media is no longer social: this is the most shocking fact of the present-day internet. Formerly the beating heart of online interaction platforms have become algorithmic marketplaces, where human posts occur more often as exceptions between towering stacks of sponsored materials and algorithmically-created filler. To tech-obsessed users who still recall the crude, unrefined years of early feeds, the transition seems less of an evolution process and more of an alienation process.
Coming back to the Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube Shorts in 2025 was not a reunion but more of a reminder of what it used to be. Such a trend could have been anticipated: one post made by one of my real friends, then within the sponsored section of the feed, then a row of influencer videos, most of which can be purchased, and, as time passes, more and more of them are computer-generated. TikTok was like a crazy shopping mall, and YouTube Shorts were swamped in fake animal saving and a fake toddler mischief. The magic of the authentic contact, which used to be an obsession, was substituted by what one user mentioned as “a carnival of bots hawking shampoo.”
This is not a secret, and the cause is money. Billion- and trillion-dollar companies are accountable to their shareholders who insist on growth, and the surest way of achieving growth is monetization. The sponsored posts on Instagram have increased, Tik Tok has adopted the idea of shoppable overload and YouTube rewards the amount of AI “slop” on originality. This change is consistent with the recent meta-analysis studies that indicate that social media fatigue is more and more leading the user to “social media detox” practices, such as brief breaks or a literal exit, which, although shows a small positive impact on well-being, always decrease negative affective states, such as anxiety and loneliness.
The contribution of AI to this change is both on the frontline and backstage. The survey of social media managers on a global scale conducted by Metricool revealed that 96 percent now work with AI tools and almost a quarter of them use them on a daily basis. They can create ideas, write captions and prepare material to fit various channels, operating as what expert Matt Navarra refers to as “a super-powered intern.”. Although this expedites work processes, it has the negative impact of homogenizing brand voices. “If a brand sounds the same because they’re all using the same [AI] model, social media becomes incredibly boring and ceases to be a platform for connection,”, Navarra threatened. The outcome is feeds on which the individuality is lost, and the trust between people that is already so weak is made even more difficult to restore.
The monetization drive does not go unrewarded. The analysis of 125 million posts conducted by Social Insider showed that engagement rates decrease annually on Tik Tok (between 2.65 and 2.5) and Instagram (between 0.70 and 0.5). A national poll of adults found that 74% of adults no longer think social media is “social”l and half of Gen Z and Millennials are looking for alternatives. Niche communities, chronological feeds, and user-created content are becoming popular on platforms such as Reddit, Bluesky, Discord, and Quora, with a rejection of algorithmic curation in favor of these alternatives. An example is Reddit, which continues to experience the sense of being packed with real humans, and its present IPO makes them apprehensive about the pressure to monetize in the future.
To a great number of disillusioned users, these smaller platforms represent the initial potential of the internet: the places where connection is deliberate, the groups are self-organized, the content is generated by common interests, not sales funnels. This movement is an extension of realignment of online priorities. As the NIH-funded meta-analysis mentions, even short-term withdrawal of social media consumption can make people happier and more likely to experience offline lives: watch TV with loved ones, run, or just find some personal space in their minds without being bombarded with notifications all the time.
The yearning to the face-to-face interaction, however, is clashing with the reality that is not going to be erased: there is no offline community rebirth to substitute the one that is being erased online. The thesis of “bowling alone” as postulated by Robert Putnam still applies; the world of associational life is still diminishing, and the internet is the best place to handle most types of “social” interactions. That is why even being frustrated, billions scroll. The question that needs to be answered in 2026 is not whether social media will survive, but whether users and platforms will be able to restore the social aspect of social media before feeds are homogenized into streams of AI-refined transactions.
Among those who refuse to give up digital life, conscious curation, i.e. selecting platforms that do not over-commercialize, limiting their use and finding communities where human voice remains above the algorithmic noise might be the way to go. This can be addressed by “AI can help with the media part, but the social part, the trust, the humor, the empathy—that’s still human.”
