"Looking at my facebook newsfeed nowadays, for example, there's an awful lot of sharing going on, but it's not original content" Maybe I'm just teasing easy co

"Looking at my facebook newsfeed nowadays, for example, there's an awful lot of sharing going on, but it's not original content" Maybe I'm just teasing easy confirmations of my theory -- very probably the case -- but I truly think that is the inevitable end-game that Facebook has hit, that Twitter has hit, and that Instagram is rapidly shooting towards. When the circle of reciprocity breaks -- when people break the "contract" of earning cheap accolades by giving cheap accolades -- it starts to become embarrassing posting original content. When you post content and get a single digit of likes, it's demotivating for many and makes them feel like a social failure, so pretty soon it's just regurgitated memes and the like. I've seen this play out across a number of age groups, to the same eventual outcome. And I didn't look at this cynically but it was a theory I floated years ago about Flickr, so I watched to see if it would happen on Facebook. I truly believe social networks should allow users to hide all likes/shares/etc, but they won't for a very good reason - gaming users. "You might be a little cynical with the comment about feigning interest though" We all have close family and close friends who of course we have a personal, sincere interest in. But as you go out the sincerity declines at a perilous slope. But Instagram and others aren't built around sharing with a few close friends.