Why Have We Lost the “Social” in Social Media?

Social media is taking a pounding lately, from lawmakers and journalists and advertisers — not to mention investors and public health experts. It’s been hammered for a range of catastrophes, from topping governments to inciting violence to wrecking a generation’s self-esteem to promoting anxiety and tech addiction.

And for the most part, it deserves it.

But that doesn’t mean social media is inherently flawed or completely irredeemable. It’s not evil on its own. It does need saving. It requires nothing short of a total rethinking for its reason for being.

That is, is social media really built for human connections and making us feel good about ourselves? Or about killing time and getting us to scroll, scroll and scroll some more.

From where I sit, social media overall it needs a dramatic makeover, or we may be doomed to suffer. And the companies that perpetuate the medium’s ills may be destined to fail.

However, there is a better way. I’ve seen it.

Social platforms need to be torn down to their foundations.

The biggest problem with social networks like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter in particular, is that they are engineered to keep you wanting more, yet never feeling satisfied, all while selling you ads and generating profits.

The reward systems encourage racking up likes and shares and ‘reactions’ that get your brain craving — while encouraging people to seek validation or reactions from strangers.

Yet rarely do you feel better for it.

They are built to keep people around longer. One more recommended video. One more eye-catching post in the feed. New tweets are loading now…Someone just read your story…and they left a comment.

Simply put, social platforms are built as distraction machines, not fulfillment machines.

Ironically, during a time where we are all counting digital ‘friends’ in the hundreds, the number of Americans who say they have no close friends has tripled in recent decades, according to the General Social Survey.

What about social savvy young people? According to a Cigna study, nearly 70% of Gen Z feels as though no one really knows them well. The more friends you have, the lonelier it gets.

That’s not to say that there aren’t many wonderful benefits of social media. A whole universe of new creators and artist have been discovered and thrived on platforms like YouTube and Facebook — talent that would never have seen the light of day years ago.

Millions of small businesses have been built on these platforms as well…helping drive the American economy.

But these successes aren’t enough to offset the escalating damage, particularly to young, still developing users. For every example of a makeup star or Glossier being launched, there are far too many examples of cyberbullying and suicide.

There is a better way. It starts with making social media social again.

Remember when your Facebook network was your closest friends and family? And you could be yourself? Have a conversation without worrying about saying the wrong thing, or performing (or scoring points, digital or otherwise).

That dynamic is increasingly hard to come by. But it’s what we’re seeing at Airtime.

Airtime is about real time video chat, with small groups of friends. It’s inherently intimate, and the circles are small. That lends itself to user — particularly young, digitally vulnerable users, being themselves. Our slogan is ‘Be Together’ because that’s all that we really want for users.

It’s hanging out with your buddies at a friends’ basement. A safe place to be as goofy or weird or different as you want.

Take Tyler. He and his friends gather on Airtime to talk about Dungeons and Dragons. He doesn’t worry about who’s watching or what they might think, because he’s there with other fans.

Take Bridget — she gathers with her friends at 8pm every weekday night to hang out and watch music videos together. See their reactions and talk about their favorite artists.

Fixing social also requires a different structure and reward system. Indeed, along with a focus on safety, that means making time spent on social platforms valuable, rewarding — and yes, limited.

In other words, we need to build our social platforms with an end in sight.

They shouldn’t be about mindlessly killing time, but about delightfully spending time and connecting people together.

At Airtime, our average session times are long. They are also fruitful and provide closure. Kids come back every day. And they don’t need to come back a dozen times a day. They leave satisfied.

The tools are designed so that they serve users, not data partners. Duration isn’t a goal onto itself…

There’s no drive to ‘win’ or achieve. Just to breathe.

Conclusion

We’re not saying we are the solution to all of social media’s problems. Only that the problems are deadly serious. And their causes deep seeded.

The mental health of millions is at risk. All of us in the tech community need to focus on this problem, with urgency, and with bold thinking.

That may mean tearing down social media before it can be rebuilt…

This post is written by and originally appeared on the Medium page of Airtime President Daniel Klaus.