Why Social Media Has Peaked and is on a Downward Trend Trajectory

New data from the Financial Times suggests we may have already hit peak social media.

Global usage has been falling since 2022, especially among younger users.

People aren’t logging in to connect anymore. They’re logging in to kill time.

And yet, the industry’s response has been the opposite of what the moment calls for.

Meta, OpenAI, and others are doubling down, building AI-driven short-form platforms designed to flood feeds with infinite, auto-generated content.

The same dopamine loops, just faster and louder.

But this was never a content problem.

It’s an incentive problem.

When the business model depends on monetizing eyeballs, every product decision will pull toward the same outcome: capture attention at any cost.

It works, but at a cost. Burnout. Polarization. Diminishing creativity.

AI isn’t changing that. It’s amplifying it.

“Ultra-processed content,” as the FT called it, isn’t the future. It’s the inevitable result of the attention economy running out of human attention.

If social media is going to evolve, it won’t come from more content, human or AI.

It will come from new incentive systems that monetize the value created for users, not the minutes captured from them.

The question isn’t what’s next for social media.

It’s what happens after the attention economy collapses.