Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate our feeds

Social media platforms used to be about communication between friends – now many are increasingly short video entertainment hubs. The business model is to increase the time people spend on their apps and increase ad revenue. But is there already a consumer backlash?

Aurélia fixes herself a coffee, sits down in her beautiful garden not far from Paris and goes on Instagram "to unwind." First up: "a guy I like a lot who does interior design." She's into interior design, and has even just had two bird drawings by the 19th Century English designer William Morris tattooed on her arms. She scrolls down. Two kittens having a fight. "I love animals so I get a lot of animals.

There are ads too – although they are often seamlessly the rest of the content feeds – for a robot-vacuum cleaner, a diet and bed linen. But no friends. She has 198 on Instagram but she says "it's completely changed. I practically don’t see any friends' posts anymore." She’s pretty much given up posting herself. "I don't think anyone sees them anymore anyway." While there remain committed social, amateur posters on Instagram and especially Facebook, the switch from communicating with people you know to scrolling through professionally made content from people you don't, is even more evident among young users.

Kylian, 16, is on TikTok and Youtube a lot, he says. I watch videos made by people I don't know. I don’t post at all. I'm a rather shy person. I stay in my bubble. I watch and that’s all. I keep my reactions to myself." "I spend a lot of time scrolling through videos made by content-creators," says Lucie, also 16. "They're more interesting than the posts of people I know." She doesn't post except sometimes "stories" which disappear after 24 hours.

Whether it's TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram, we are a long way from the "digital town square" of personal interaction that social media was even just a few years ago. In France, 49% of social media users are "active only sporadically". In the UK, and US, people are posting less often than the previous year.

Users have become more conscious that the traces you leave on social media stay there forever and some no longer want to maintain social media relations that can be superficial. Others are reluctant to expose themselves to criticism or judgment that might be a risk when you post or the feeling that their post will seem mediocre alongside all the professional content". However, people haven’t stopped posting, rather they are posting different things and in different places. "On TikTok, for example, young people publish a lot of content but it's more funny parodies and remixes of existing material. The goal is to make people laugh, not to tell people about their lives."

That still happens, but it’s migrated from social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook to messaging sites like WhatsApp. There's also been a move towards private groups on Instagram and Snapchat. "These are perceived much more intimate places where you're not bombarded with ads and content made by influencers."

"What we're witnessing is social media splitting in two. Big platforms like Instagram and TikTok are becoming more about entertainment and discovery. WhatsApp is becoming the place people go to actually be social. The catch is, those kinds of spaces are harder for companies to make money from." It was TikTok that helped to pioneer an algorithm that figures out from the moment you start scrolling what you like, and then fills your feed with material calculated to keep you on the app for the longest possible time.

Now, "Meta has built what it calls an AI system for unconnected content recommendations on Facebook and Instagram, which basically means, they're increasingly showing you stuff from people you don't follow because the machine thinks you're going to like it. It’s indifferent to whether the post comes from a professional creator, a brand, or a friend. If they can see that you've engaged with a friend a lot, you might see a lot more of their content. The crucial point is that who you are friends with, who you follow, has become irrelevant in a way."

This all means that small businesses, that have long used social media for free promotion have to up their game and become more sophisticated. "There's a real opportunity for some small businesses". "A bakery, florist, salon or local café can still break through if they have a good story, strong visuals or behind-the-scenes content people want to watch. But it also means the job has changed. Small business owners are being pushed to become presenters, editors, trend spotters and content creators, on top of actually running the business." Social media is evolving into something passive like television, albeit television that adapts as you zap.

The transition from truly social media to entertainment platform does seem to be paying off. "The social platforms continue to be monetised predominantly by ad revenue. That core business model still remains intact. And ad revenue continues to grow. AI powered digital ad targeting is becoming ever more effective and precise. "The social platforms allow companies to put ads amongst the content that you're scrolling through. Every third or fourth scroll is an ad. And they are the world's best ad targeting engines.