There's a challenge to define the terms in this conversation. Is Facebook social media? I think most people would agree yes. Is Youtube? Is Tiktok? Is WhatsApp?

There's a challenge to define the terms in this conversation. Is Facebook social media? I think most people would agree yes. Is Youtube? Is Tiktok? Is WhatsApp? Social media started off as a place to connect online with your offline social network--your friends and family. Then it became a place where you could meet new people. Finally, it became a place where you could find interesting content... sort of a modern version of "turning on the TV" in the 1980s. (And from the other perspective... a place you could go to build an audience, if you wanted one.) Today, I would argue that those features have been split up. Messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, iMessage etc. are where people go to stay connected with friends and family. And video apps like Youtube, Tiktok, and (increasingly) Instagram are where people go to be entertained. Facebook is left in the middle, pushing news, then Groups, now Marketplace to try to keep people coming back. Twitter is also skewing toward 100% entertainment, a trend that Musk is leaning into with his tabloid approach to content management. Meanwhile, people still call Tiktok and Instagram "social media" even though they don't work like social media websites did 15 years ago. Some folks even call Reddit or HN social media. (I would call them web forums.)