The (Happy) Decline of Social Media

You may be familiar with the term “enshitification.”

It wasn’t a word I was familiar with until I came across it in the Financial Times this weekend (if the FT can print it, I'm going with it).

It refers to the decline in interest in social media.

Are We At Last Junking Social Media?

The article notes that: “Across the developed world, adults aged 16 and older spent an average of two hours per day on social platforms at the end of 2024, down by almost 10 per cent since 2022.” I'm very encouraged by this because I’ve long felt that social media is one of the great afflictions of our century, contributing to loneliness and sadness among many, particularly young people.

I’m in complete agreement with the writer, John Burn-Murdoch, who goes on to say: “It would be a hugely welcome development to discover that we have not merely reached social media saturation point, but that the experience has been degraded to such an extent that it has shocked people out of their stupor and is prompting them to pivot to healthier uses of their time.”

Time which we can, instead, spend making and seeing friends, and re-embracing the pleasures of reading books, writing stories, keeping diaries or letters, and engaging in all manner of other creative pursuits.

If you are inspired to write something yourself, and you’re a school pupil in Bristol, there are still a few weeks left to enter the Clifton LitFest Young Adults’ Writing Competition. You can find all the details on this very site. For complete ease click on:

👉 https://www.cliftonlitfest.net