The history of social networks is intertwined with that of the internet itself

If you’re old enough, you might have used MySpace, IRC or bulletin boards. Maybe you’re on facebook. You’re probably on Instagram and TikTok. Billions of people spend hours every day interacting, consuming and creating on these platforms.

We are hooked on social networks because they speak to our deep and rooted fear of disconnection. They provide a solace for those moving away, a reassurance against losing our loved ones to time and distance. They give us a means to reconnect with long lost friends and stay in touch with family. We reminisce and celebrate together. We find inspiration. We connect with customers and discover opportunities. We find new jobs and develop new skills. We share our triumphs and commiserate over our losses.

Social networks helped us find and retain our tribes wherever they were, they made the world smaller and fulfilled our need for community.

We are social creatures. Our need for community goes back to the dawn of human society where ancestors lived as hunter-gatherers in small, close-knit groups. They shared responsibilities, supported each other, and collaborated. Those communities provided safety and provided a mutually beneficial environment. Community is the reason we survived, evolved and flourished as a species.

Community is a basic human need. Social networks tap into need that with the promise of connection and intimacy.

The unfulfilled promise

We came for connection and community, and instead got addicted to empty emotional calories, and the inevitable crash that followed, leaving us craving for more.

We came for intimacy and to learn from each other, and got the internet of beef instead: bots and trolls, harassment mobs and state actors, keyboard warriors and misinformation farms.

Along the way, we went from meaningful connections to humble brags and like-hunting.

We went from lighting up at reconnecting with a childhood friend to feeling miserable because all our friends are in better shape, on vacation, getting more likes and living their best lives.

So we started playing the game too. No room for nuance, only binary opinions. No tolerance, no context, no consequences. No empathy, only outrage. We think of leaving, often, but we never do.

Online social networks run on dopamine and fear. We’re addicted to the rush and are afraid to leave because we don’t want to loose touch.

Social networks trap us, preying on our need for connection and fear of losing access. They lock us in, we are stuck.

It’s not us, it’s them

social networks bring out the worst in us. And it’s not entirely our fault.

The financial climate of these past couple of decades was one where money was cheap. Cheap money meant that providers could afford (and were expected) to focus on growth value. Exponential growth was required to meet the return expectations of investors. That environment led to one where most of us grew accustomed to getting free things, without questioning how it all worked.

We are not customers of social networks, we are the product. The actual customers finance the whole thing in return for our attention and data, and the providers oblige. Social networks are free because we pay for them with our attention and data. Their actual product offering is the time we spend on their services, scrolling our feeds and swiping our stories.

That explains why and how they do it. To understand why we stick around, we need to go back to the 1980s and to a french social scientist called Rene Girard and his theory of mimesis.

Mimesis

Mimetic theory states that we desire things not intrinsically, but through imitation. In simple words — it means what you strive for, what you desire, what you want, isn’t in your nature, it’s driven by what others have, what you experience, envy, desire.

It’s a pretty simple concept — once our basic needs are fulfilled, desire kicks in. Desire is fuelled by everyone around us.

Mimetic theory is a fascinating topic. The first moment I read about it, it was like a fog was lifted and I understood myself and my desires on a totally different level. But that’s a whole other topic. For now, let’s leave it with this: when asked about why he invested in facebook, Peter Thiel said “I bet on mimesis”.

Before social networks, our mimetic models came from a small set of people, those we see every day, in our neighborhood, our town, our village. With social networks everyone in the world could now fuel our desires. FOMO unleashed.

Desire leads to engagement, engagement leads to addiction. Addiction can be monetized.

and that is how we got here. Realizing that addiction was better for business than connection, Knowingly or unknowingly, social networks leverage mimesis.

They prioritised engagement over quality. Outrage over intimacy.

They have one singular purpose. Eyeballs. The longer they can get you to stay, the more you commented or posted or doomscrolled, the more they could monetize your attention.

Happiness doesn’t sell. Outrage, anger, flame wars. Those things sell.

The business models of all social networks is fundamentally orthogonal to our interests. That is not a problem that can be fixed. We need a new paradigm.

All hope is not lost

We seek meaning and authentic connection in our community. Social networks, done right, can give us that.

I believe that the stars are aligning. Between social media fatigue, technological breakthroughs, and an informed public that is privacy conscious and aware, people are seeking out and demanding better ways to connect.

The social networks of the future need to be built on two foundations, to be aligned with the interests of their users and avoid the mistakes of the past: agency and alignment.

The problem can not be solved before we ensure users have agency over their network. Your network needs to be portable — that means that it belongs to you, and you can take it with you wherever you go. Portability ensure that service providers can’t lock you in through fear. Your data needs to remain private, no third party can access your data without your knowledge and optimally consent.

Alignment goes hand in hand with agency. If providers can’t monetize your data, they have to build better products that you are willing to pay for. They need to compete on merit and value creation. Users might resist initially, but the willingness to pay is already there, and will become normalized.

Whether it’s built on the blockchain or implements Activity Hub or some other protocol, one thing is clear: User agency and business alignment are the foundations on which we can build the social networks of the future.

Social networks that are designed with all the upside and none of the downside of today’s networks.

Social networks that bring us together instead of pulling us apart, ones that promote collaboration, meaningful connection, empathy and access, ones that enrich and delight and teach.