It’s not social. It’s television.
We still say "social network." The word moved.
Facebook started as a directory. Twitter was a public conversation. Instagram was a photo album. The idea was in the name: link up, don't just watch.
Then attention paid better than connection. The feed took over the conversation. A few people post. Everyone else scrolls, alone, and calls it a social life.
It's not social. It's television, just more targeted.
Alone, together
We've never been more connected, or more alone. The apps do what they were built for: keep the thumb moving. Not help two people meet on a street corner.
The people who grew up inside this can see it. They talk about doomscrolling, delete apps, come back. Nobody really throws the phone away. They just want it to do something besides kill time.
Closer to the street
The question I keep opening the editor for: what does social software look like if it aims at meeting people, not time spent? Slower, more local, closer to the sidewalk than the studio.
Not TikTok. Not Facebook in 2005 either. More like a city than a channel. That's where WeWalk starts. Not for a line about tech and humans. So you don't walk home alone.
The old networks didn't go away. They're in every pocket. They just stopped being social. Time to build another one.