The great digital fatigue: How digital burnout is changing social media use

Retr0id

Everything happens "quietly" these days...

bcjdjsndon

Social media not adequatly defined in this article. It's hysteria, a buzzword. The article is just noise without specifying what they're talking about

TomMasz

Social media isn't "social" anymore. It's algorithmically designed to keep you scrolling. Burnout is inevitable.

daveydave

I hope we can reach a point where there's enough research on the negative effects of social media (or more specifically which features of it e.g. scrolling videos) that we can inform people from a young age.

pjc50

> "Political content is pushing users toward the exit" The culture war is exhausting. The idealist dream of some sort of Athenian public deliberation has been overwritten by ragebait. It's both very effective at meeting social media goals (getting people to spend too much time online arguing with strangers), and political goals (Project 2025; the Hungarian/Russian/American conserviative project CPAC; whatever it is that Musk is doing with X; Cambridge Analytica; and so on).

inigyou

I now realise that incogni and incognet are two different companies.

q8zd3

> "More than half (51%) of participants indicated that maintaining an online presence feels like work." Well, because it is. Social media turned most of its users into digital beggars.

charltonraven

Its strange for me. Some years ago, I only thought that the younger kids/adults was had the "separation anxiety" when it came to social media, but I have a 40 year old sister in law that is purely obsessed and it is crazy. I'm a big tech person but I know how to put my phone down. Heck most of the time I don't even have it on me.

weagle05

I know many people who say they're "off" social media but they're still scrolling. They may post less or not at all, but the algorithm still has them.

smcg

I've heard people say that if your post on social media isn't making you money, then it isn't worth making. This is very different from early Facebook/Twitter where the majority of posts were mundane things about one's life. Going on Japanese Twitter was a very different and refreshing experience, because people still post random little life updates. But Westerners rarely do that now.

Lerc

Burnout is a symptom of prolonged unsustainable engagement. I think it is a false narrative to say that the majority of people who are leaving platforms were overcommitted to that extent. I think it is the simple fact that the platforms no longer provide enough to justify sticking around, People came for the pie, stayed for the pie, and left when the vendors started serving cardboard wrapped razor blades and tried to convince you it was still a pie.

high_5

Chat apps have already replaced socialapps like FB long ago and the companies know it. Meta has FB Messenger and WhatsApp.

HelloUsername

Related (should've been source at): "Death of the Status Update: Why 55% of Americans Stopped Posting on Social Media" 12-jul-2026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48879902 183 comments

brador

It’s not burnout, it’s panic. The void is coming and everyone knows it.

j45

It’s likely if this is a thing, that early internet users of the 90s experienced their equivalent of having enough.

a1000regrets

I am on a path to recovery from social media addiction (Twitter/x > Instagram > Youtube Shorts). Here is what has worked for me so far - 1. Uninstall the apps, but replace them with mobile browser views. All these services have functional web views that will feed your withdrawal, but adds friction to slowly wind you out. 2. Desktop/laptop (that you use for studying/working) - modify you /etc/hosts and map x.com to localhost. 3. Leave phone in the car when you get back home from work.