Tag: instagram

Mark Zuckerberg says Social Media is dead (and other thoughts on social media for Dec 2025)

Last year I wrote that Bluesky is making social media fun again, and that was true. It’s still somewhat true: of the remaining platforms, Bluesky and Instagram are still getting steady use from me in 2025.

That might change in 2026 if Instagram starts floods itself with AI content, though. Already I am seeing more and more people posting terrible reels that either are explicitly AI generated or probably AI generated (I’m looking at you, cute animal videos.) Once AI video slop takes over that platform, my Instagram days will be over.

Despite my use, is it true in 2025 that social media really dead for most othe people? In a recent court trial, Mark Zuckerberg of all people says so. It was in his interest to say so in the trial, though. I still believe that the 1-9-90 rule continues to apply to social media: 1% of users create new content, 9% of users will engage with that content, and 90% just consume content. The difference now is the content people consume is not so much from their friends but from organizations and influencers.

As for where they consume it, according to Pew Research Center, most people in 2025 get their content on sites like Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Those platforms are also the ones that have seen growth since 2021, according to Axios. Axios adds WhatsApp and Reddit to those sites seeing growth.

The one social media platform seeing decline since 2021 is X (Twitter).  It doesn’t help that X is the go to site for antisemitism, according to CNN. (More on that, here.) And that’s just one of many reasons for people to flee it for twitter-like sites such as Threads and Bluesky.

As for Threads and Bluesky and Truth Social, they just don’t have the juice that Twitter had in it’s heyday. Maybe Mark Z is right: maybe social media as we knew it is dead. Maybe now those social media platforms are just full of people watching TikToks and Reels and Youtube videos, when they aren’t streaming music and video. And maybe that’s not a bad thing.

P.S. For more detailed analysis, I highly recommend the Pew report I linked to.

You should set up two-factor authentication (2FA) on Instagram. And you should use an authenticator app

You might think: no one is going to hack my Instagram account. And you might be right. But here’s the thing: if someone does hack your account, you have next to no chance of getting someone at Instagram to restore it. Rather than make it easy for hackers to take over your account, spam your friends and delete years of photos, you should use 2FA. To do so, read this article: How to Turn on Two-Factor Authentication on Instagram.

While you can use SMS, I recommend using an authenticator app. That article explains how you can do it either way. Authenticator apps are more secure than SMS and are the way to go these days. For more on that, see PCMag.

Facebook is wrecking Instagram. Here’s why.


I knew the day that Facebook/Meta bought Instagram that it would eventually wreck it. It took awhile, but that day has come, at least for me. It will for you too. It went from being a place to post photos to a place to post stories to a full on replacement for Facebook/TikTok/Messenger/etc. Yuck. I can barely use it now.

For more on the disaster that Instagram is becoming, read: Building a new Titanic on the deck of the old one. This piece shows it isn’t even helping Facebook/Meta: Data Shows Decline in Instagram Post Engagement As App Favors Reels. So they ruined it for themselves AND the users. Interesting business model.

Overall I think this development suggests the decline of Facebook/Meta, the company. For more on that decline, see: What Is Facebook? in The New York Times

 

Billie Eilish, or what’s no longer new in social media

Social media is in a funny period these days. For one thing, the “old” social media seems to have plateaued and is not yielding big results. For example, Ms Ellish’s Millions of Followers did not result in big book sales. Nor did Mr. Timberlake’s social media fans. No doubt their books suffered for many reasons, but one time social media could be the thing to propel them to success. Not any more.

It’s been long known that Facebook has been struggling to maintain its young users. It seems the same is now true for another part of Facebook/Meta: Instagram. It’s not that people have given up on social media. For example, there are new contenders, like Twitch and Discord. Perhaps Meta will buy them to stay fresh, just like they bought Instagram and WhatsApp. Meanwhile, Meta plans to remove thousands of sensitive ad-targeting categories. The more things change….

Before I close, if you still use RSS like I do (with the Feedly app), here are the  Top Toronto RSS Feeds.

(Image from NYTimes)

 

Online Privacy Should Be Modeled on Real-World Privacy (or, Stop Following Us Around Constantly!)

I’ve been saying that for some time — years — so I am glad to see someone like  Daring Fireball come out and say it too. I don’t know about you, but I am sick of the degree of tracking that occurs. I was talking to someone about Birkenstock shoes last night and the next day, Instagram/Facebook put a Birkenstock ad in my IG Stories. It is likely a coincidence, or the fact that the person I was talking to may have been searching on info about them and IG put 2 and 2 together, but it is freaky. 

Needless to say, there is a whole INDUSTRY of companies that track the hell out of us, and it has to stop. Here’s to Apple and others giving us more control over this.

So you want to become famous on Instagram? You might want to read this first

Why? Because as this article shows, become famous on Instagram is a lot harder than you might think:  I Tried to Make My Dog an Instagram Celebrity. I Failed. – The New York Times.

Yes, I know you are not a dog, but the same lessons will apply.

My guess is that the ship has sailed on become famous on Instagram. Same for podcasts and any other social media that has been around for a few years. You need to get in early, work hard, and take advantage of network effects.

If you do decide to become Instagram famous and manage to pull it off, please come here and mock me and I will update this post. 🙂

Cindy Sherman is on Instagram and is doing something new

And the New York Times has a good analysis of here work so far. I really enjoyed the analysis. As for me, I found it interesting that she has transitioned the account from a basic one that recorded events the way most of us do into something that extends her art in a way few of us can do. I also like that great artists like Sherman can take new media and incorporate it into their work but also extend it. David Hockney did something similar with the Brushes app. Here's hoping more artists do such things.

Instragram = advertising

Each social media has an implicit purpose. The stronger ones have a purpose that is clear. Facebook: stay connected to family and friends; LinkedIn: connect with employees/employers. For Instagram, the purpose is advertising. For most people, it is advertising your life. For certain people, with many many followers, it is advertising products.

To get a sense of how much Instagram is about advertising, see this: Confessions of an Instagram Influencer – Bloomberg. While many of us are amateurs at advertising on Instagram, this article will show you how the pros go about it.

I have often looked at people Instagram proposes I follow and I have wondered why people take the photos they do. This article helps explain that. It also helps one understand why some people’s photos look nothing like yours.

How the ‘Spicy Boi’ comments on Hillary’s Instagram shows the difficulty of dealing with trolls

To see what I mean, read this piece in NYMag, Everyone Is Commenting ‘Spicy Boi’ on Hillary’s Instagram. Note how the social networks cross over the various platforms. The social organization of this activity goes from platform (iFunny) to platform (Twitter) to platform (Instagram). No doubt at some point it will appear on Reddit, 4chan, and who knows where else. It’s very hard to deal with trolls when you have people on one platform (e.g. Twitter) trying to control things, yet you can have social groups planning raids, etc. on other platforms.

Three thoughts:

  • the comment section for big accounts on Instagram is next to useless. I wonder why it is even enabled for them? I think they should disable it, or give the user the option to disable it.
  • In many cases, the comment sections should be limited to such things as “Likes” or “Thumbs Up” or simple polls.
  • Social media needs to involve either really good AI or (better) really good people to moderate things. It can’t happen soon enough.