The term 'social media' has changed a lot over time. The attention grabbing kind we have today is a very different beast than what we started out with; no ads and only a chronological timeline showing posts from your network.

The original kind was genuinely connecting people and adding value. The current one is in effect isolating and driving people and groups apart.

Luckily, the original kind did not vanish. I find a lot of joy hanging out on the fediverse. I spend far less time on it than what I did on Twitter of FB back when I still had accounts there, but that is a good sign.

Social media is too generous term to use when describing products from Meta, TikTok, Snap, X etc. It is an ad platform that also, occasionality, shows you what your friends are up to.

We should come up with a better term than 'social media' when describing platforms that has reached the last stage of enshitification.