Maarten van der Vleuten 🎧

🦔 Young people are quitting social media and going analog. A Deloitte survey found nearly a third of Gen Zers deleted a social media app in the past year. Global social media use has declined almost 10% since its 2022 peak, with the drop most pronounced among teens and 20-somethings. They're buying vinyl records, switching to flip phones, taking up hobbies like knitting, and prioritizing in-person connections over online engagement. One social media manager called it a "quiet revolution" against content overload. My Take The reasons people give for leaving are consistent. AI slop dominating feeds. Constant advertising. Lifestyle comparison destroying mental health. Platforms that feel like commercials interrupted by content. Gen Z is the most advertised-to generation in history, and as platforms face pressure to monetize everything, it's only getting worse. There's something poetic about this happening as tech companies spend $600 billion on AI infrastructure. The assumption behind all that capex is that people want more algorithmic content, more engagement, more time in apps. But a growing number of users are concluding the opposite. They're not looking for better recommendations or smarter AI. They're looking for an exit. Being offline and unreachable is becoming a status symbol, which is a problem if your business model depends on capturing attention. Of course, fully disconnecting is a privilege most people can't afford when smartphones are required for banking, work authentication, and navigation. But the fact that opting out has become aspirational says something about what these platforms have become. They optimized so hard for engagement that they made engagement feel like a trap. Hedgie🤗