Social networks are just vacuums of interest and I think they'll continue on that trajectory until an inevitable societal disinterest in centralized information

Social networks are just vacuums of interest and I think they'll continue on that trajectory until an inevitable societal disinterest in centralized information sharing platforms. The internet will never reflect reality. - If you walk around venting to everyone all the time, you will have no friends. - If you walk around virtue signaling and one-upping people all the time, you will have no friends. - If you walk around telling people all the prestigious companies and schools you've attended, you will have no friends. Except on the internet all of the above is totally acceptable and even encouraged. People love to share information about themselves, there's a psychological component to this. It feels good. - It feels good to let people know exactly how frustrated and slightly nihilistic with the world you are. - It feels good to unload on the political opposition and get likes and shares in return. - It feels good to have reductionist arguments that get cited on mainstream news. You can delve into plenty of reasons why people do this stuff. Personally, I don't think it matters and I say that as someone who detests social media so much that I stay off of it. People come to the internet for different reasons and those reasons find an intersection on social media. I love IRC primarily for this but also because it couples anonymity with the service. We get some abusers and manipulators but even the stalking and harassment attempts that people have tried on me are worth the stay. I can speak freely and relate to people in a way that would not be possible otherwise, and largely I thank the culture of Freenode and it's channels for that. Yet, Freenode is also a vacuum of interest, just one designed for nerds that communicate over ASCII anonymously. Join the network that's right for you, just like you would in real life.