The Decline of Socialization

Hey guys. Primal Instinks here, and I wanted to put my thoughts into writing once more. I filmed a few videos recently where I lamented about how people haven't been making efforts to hang out or even keep in touch with their friends for the past few years now, and unfortunately it hasn't gotten better since then -- it's gotten worse.

We all have to work for a living and have our own responsibilities and crosses to bear, and some people are more introverted than others (which is a legitimate personality type and completely fine), but the clear culprit for the social decline of extroverted people is, ironically, "social" media and the internet. To illustrate my point, I want to take you back to when I was a kid.

As a Millennial, I still remember my first cellphone. It was a flip phone, and it did everything it needed to do. It didn't have apps or high speed internet on it; it made calls, sent texts, and took photos. I only used it for what phones are supposed to be used for it, and in no way was I addicted to it.

There was also this cool computer messaging program at the time called AIM, which stood for AOL Instant Messenger. You created a username for yourself, added your friends by their usernames, and then you could send messages back and forth. That was it. There were no "likes" or subscriber counts, and no "feed" designed to ensnare you into a doom-scrolling social media addiction. AIM was truly designed for friends and family to keep in touch and to embrace socialization between people.

One of the first social media sites that existed when I was a kid was MySpace. Like AIM, MySpace was created with socialization in mind, but it also added artistic expression. The site's tagline was "a place for friends." You uploaded a few photos, picked a background song and design for your profile, and wrote a biography about yourself, which included listing your favorite bands and movies etc. You could add others as friends, leave them comments, and send them direct messages.

Again, there were no likes, follower counts, or live feeds on MySpace. Tom Anderson, the former President and a co-creator of MySpace, genuinely wanted to give people a place to express themselves and meet others with similar interests and hobbies. He also created it as an alternative to another early social media site that forced people to use their real names on it. MySpace didn't require you to disclose your personal information for online privacy reasons.

Then came Facebook. After MySpace was sold to a big company and became littered with ads and changed for the worst, Facebook overtook it in popularity. This new social media site had a noticeably different approach -- requiring people to use their real names, using police-type technology to scan the photos they'd post, and constantly asking who was in each photo and where they were taken. It was no surprise to eventually learn that Facebook was mining the personal data of its users and selling it behind the scenes to marketing companies, along with placing targeted ads on its website. I even learned that after you "delete" your Facebook account, it disappears from public view, but they continue to store, and likely sell, all your metadata long after you're gone.

Basically, Facebook took the sincere approach of MySpace and twisted it into a greedy, shady, money-making scheme. They monetized the concept of friendship like a profit-first corporation. As we know, additional and similar popular social media sites and apps followed, and today people are pressured to sign up for all the major ones or be left behind online.

There's a reason I only have an account on YouTube and nowhere else. Before it was bought by Google, YouTube's slogan was "broadcast yourself," and it was all about random people (non-celebrities) filming home videos of themselves and expressively their artistic creativity in video form. As a homage to its original intention, I keep my content simple and homemade without high-production editing or annoying product placement endorsements. I keep it as original and independent as I can while maintaining enough income for myself to get by. I truly aim to express myself and make a connection with my fans, and to make a positive impact on their lives and the world we live in. And yes, YouTube has an algorithm, but it mainly recommends me awesome new music which I personally love it for.

The irony of "social" media today is that people don't use it to socialize or make new friends like it was originally created for. These days, it's all about getting people addicted to feeds and algorithms so they'll continue spending time on them and driving profits for the companies who own them by use of ads and personal data collection. They use "likes" and follower counts to goad people into competition, and they offer a small fraction of payout in terms of revenue sharing as further incentive.

Here's another example of what I mean. I momentarily had a Snapchat account where I added friends and co-workers from a restaurant I used to work at part-time before I began filming videos full time for a living. Oddly, few people I added as friends posted stories or photos on their accounts, and they didn't read or reply to messages I sent them much, but I noticed in the "views" list they would always look at my photos and watch my video posts all the way through. In other words, the only thing they used their account for was to look at what other people were posting, including posts from random celebrities and influencers they followed. They didn't actually converse with friends or try to make plans to hang out. Suffice to say, I deleted my Snapchat account and never looked back at it.

I've also known people who admitted to me they were addicted to scrolling on social media sites like TikTok every day and had been struggling with it for years. Their social lives had been replaced by an endless quest of regularly scrolling for a dopamine rush. Instead of creating memories with new friends or spending time with their existing ones, they were dependent on getting pleasure from the phone in their hand. Kids don't even go outside to play anymore because they're given phones at such a young age and become addicted to them early on. And we all know when people say they're "busy" these days, there's a good chance they're actually just scrolling on their phone, and it's hard to believe they really missed your calls and messages when they're always on their phone whenever you manage to see them.

This was already a big problem for humanity, but it got worse when a virus was unleashed on the world and people were forced or demanded to leave their jobs, avoid social interaction, and isolate themselves in their homes. While the sickness was real, the political hysteria of it compounded the existing decline of socialization, and some people are still stuck in the mind state that being around others or leaving their home is a dangerous thing. People also developed deeper internet addictions while holed up in their homes that they didn't recover from.

Now, with the rise of AI (artifical intelligence technology), social interactions are even more at risk. People are chatting with AI bots instead of other people because they're designed to be so lifelike with their conversations. People can also create artwork and music using AI, which puts original artists and musicians at an unfair advantage. Do we really want to live in an artificial world run by computers and robots? I personally don't!

So what does the future hold for socialization? At this rate, it's not looking good. As technology continues to rise, socialization continues to decline. The world is becoming less natural and more artificial as time goes on. Like any addiction, technology has a strong grip on humanity, and backed by billion-dollar corporations, it will continue to squeeze as much free time and sanity out of you as it can at your expense.

But only if you let it.