In addition to curiosity about the No Kings protests, some recent articles about research/surveys also had me thinking about social media.

The most interesting of them presents the findings of a survey by the UK government Office of Communications (usually shortened to Ofcom). They found that the number of adults who “post, share or comment” on social media has dropped to under half, compared to 61% two years ago.

So, why the big drop in participation?

The Ofcom researchers cite factors like concerns about mental health and “unease over the unearthing of ill-conceived historical posts”. But they also note that the decline could be more about the “changing nature of social media itself.

The rise of apps such as TikTok and the popularity of video features including Instagram’s Reels mean that people are consuming social media more passively and are less likely to take an active role, a change compared with how they might have behaved on platforms such as Facebook.

“A lot of this is down to the nature of social media platforms changing,” says Joseph Oxlade, a senior research manager at Ofcom. “It is much harder for people to play in these spaces themselves.”

In the beginning of social media, pretty much everyone learned how to write for the web. At least they figured out how to use 140 characters (then 280) to put some ideas out in the world. Some of us, actually attempted writing in the longer form known as blogging.

Today, however, the most popular social media channels are YouTube, TikTok, and other short video formats that have taken over the traditional platforms like Facebook. Pushing out simple writing and photos.

Which means that, in just the past couple of years, creating content for the web has become far more difficult for most of us.

Not really technically demanding. Almost everyone knows where the record video button is on their phone. The hard part is creating something an audience will actually want to spend time watching.

Way back around the turn of the century, we celebrated the advent of Web 2.0, the development of tools that allowed almost anyone to contribute to the stream of content. Now it seems we’re moving back to the time before that when most of us were simply consumers of content created by the few with the right access.

Good? Bad? Just another stage in the evolution of social media? Whatever the answer, I certainly will not be making influencer Reels or turning this space into a video channel.

You’re welcome.

The comic strip at the top, Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis, is a wonderful comment on the current relationship most people have with social media.