Why Is Social Media Getting So Complicated?

Mah Weng Kit
Nov 12
3 min read

Remember back in the day where social media like Friendster or MySpace are all about connecting people rather growing into a full all-in-one app? As simple as open, post a picture, goes through friend’s status, drop a status and that’s it. Algorithm not even a thing, no complicated steps just to post a thing, that’s how things work back in the day. Now social media just becoming the full ecosystems with analytics, marketplace, community managements and ads. It’s great for power users, but it becoming even more exhausting with new features which made a complicated apps even more complicated.

The War for the Best Features

When every platforms are competing for having the best features, copying one another, tweak it abit and named it as their own (just like how Instagram’s stories are similar to Snapchat). Even LinkedIn’s not left behind by having a mixture of blogging features with little bit of TikTok’s blend and newsletter feel. Now with TikTok’s short videos, it was Youtube jumping on it with their Shorts cause, why not?

Today, social media platforms no longer have much distinct identities that truly standout from another. All just having hybrid features which other platform having it too, just named it differently or maybe with a few tweaks. This making the platform crowded with new features. Somehow and sometimes, stability and bugs still become the major issues. Just before the previous bug on scroll through feeds issue been fixed, another new feature called “quick repost”, which adding up a issue and complicating the platform even more.

Connection to Monetization

As the subtitle above said, social media used to be all about connection, now with monetization being involved. Ads, boosts, a paid verification badge and even the entire marketplace on the platform. Providing users with new way to make money which at the same time adding another layer of complexity. Your profile page no longer as easy as it seems, it’s a storefront, a data mine and a personal business. Every movements are well documented, been designed to keep you spending, scrolling or selling. Aside from memes, everything else means business.

Evolved Algorithm

When algorithm get hyper-personalized, it just like the platform determine what you gonna see and not what you wanna see. Getting even harder to predict and complex, it get users hooked to keep scrolling the feeds, in the name of “engagement” of course. Soon to be for the feeds no longer showing what we want to see but rather it’s control what we have to see. While the algorithm getting more complex, marketers no longer able to fully capture what required to direct the right message to the right audience.

The Artificial Intelligence Takeover

AI seems to be invading everything, social media platforms of course no escaping from this. From booting up the app, generative AI can be everywhere, guiding from auto captions, contents, replies or recommendations. Making users hesitate to put the trust or how it actually works. AI which supposed to make social media smarter is making it weirder. You might having “communicate” with some of the chatbots planted by businesses, it becoming so normal as why do we waste money hiring someone to handle social medias while AI could do same thing and it’s 24/7 on service? And so it goes. Even as algorithm which discussed earlier could be filtered through recommendation AI, trained for content discovery that could predict what your next move gonna be. You talk about bee with your buddies? Next thing you see on your feeds could be honey!

FOMO

FOMO, stands for Fear of missing out in gen Z dictionary, While every platforms try not to be missing, rushing to introduce similar features by the moment another app start trending. Just to look innovative, features been rushed out frequently, with minor care regarding stability and bugs that stacking up. The new trendy feature indeed nice to have, however, usually come with frequent crash or not functioning at all.

Simplicity Still Rule! (maybe..)

Let’s look back on the origin of social media, where all about connections with friends and families before being expanded into businesses. Digital marketing is still relying on social medias and all features are meant to make it even smoother. The next biggest social media wave might be not about the biggest or innovative features, it could be about clarity and simplicity. The one social platforms that could survive long enough won’t be the ones with that remember why the social media platform are meant to be, to share moments, to connect and of course to laugh on memes.