The Broken Promise of Social Media

When social media became mainstream, it’s hard to overstate how excited we all were at the possibilities for human connection. We thought that we’d be more connected to our family and friends. We saw how it could make hanging out easier. We could keep up with what everyone was doing and be a part of each other’s daily lives as opposed to seeing each other every so many weeks or months. We even thought that it’d enable human connection at work.

Calling people on the phone started dipping in popularity as cell phones became ubiquitous, so we quickly relied on social media as our means of connection to other humans.

It Worked For a While...I Think

I remember just after I had my second kid, and, having a lot of couch-baby time, I decided to start blogging more. I ended up moving my blog from MySpace to a WordPress site and started posting the links on FaceBook. All of the sudden people were actually reading what I wrote. I got a lot of encouragement from friends and family I hadn’t heard from in a long time and I started connecting with other bloggers from around the country. Some of those early posts were cringe-worthy, yes, but it was cool! It felt like a form of connection.

And then there were photos. In the way-back times, people made film slide shows of their vacations and regaled their dinner party guests with their vacation stories. Shortly after that, we simply made photo albums to thumb through, but forcing family and friends to look at our (sometimes boring) photos fell out of fashion.

But then came social media, and forcing family friends to look at your photos was cool again. People started taking way better pictures, and being able to look at them from your computer or phone was a much more enjoyable experience as opposed to the owner watching your facial expressions as you look at them from their living room. It was so cool that several companies sprang up just for sharing photos.

When Social Media Jumped the Shark

But, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past several years, you’ll know that the value of social media is quickly reaching its expiration. Blogging became synonymous with pop-up ads. Sharing vacay photos became one-upping everyone with the vacations you can afford. The increase in photography skills became kids thinking they needed to be models turned influencers.

As Jonathan Haidt reminds us in “The Anxious Generation”, kids that grew up with social media and smartphones are anxious and depressed and have forgotten how to play. I would argue that their parents have not escaped that fate, either.

If you haven’t watched Scott Hanselman’s TedX talk on how technology broke its promise to us, please do. Scott, a VP at Microsoft, argues that technology promised us connection, creativity, and convenience and didn’t ultimately deliver. We’re seeing those effects today. To watch someone who loves technology as much as he does express his feeling of betrayal is really quite touching.

After 20 years of social media, it’s time to connect again

AI is obviously pretty mainstream now, and it’s kind of surprising to me that it looks like AI is driving human connection. Could that be right?

I would imagine that the percentage of posts that are AI-generated is pretty darn high. And I get it. It saves a ton of time and cognitive drain. You give it a prompt, and it knows the right ordering of words to get the type of reaction you’re looking for. You dump in a spaghetti ordered stream of consciousness draft, and it spits out a three topic ordered essay in whatever tone you tell it to write in.

My AI Fail & The Rise of AI Slop

I tried to use AI for a social media post once myself, and at first I was super impressed. It had a professional tone and added some points I hadn’t even thought of. A few days later, I reevaluated it, though, and it actually missed the mark. Those points I hadn’t even thought of were actually not supporting my main message. I ended up feeling very cringey about it and ended up taking it down.

This mass adoption of AI-generated content has even birthed the term “AI Slop”. It has been used so much that its value is beginning to be diminished. It has made me take stock of how I use AI in my content. Ever since that week when I experimented with AI-generated content, I decided that I would only use AI for helping me think through different aspects of a topic or to help with proofing content, but I would never have AI write my content. I myself don’t want to spend my day scrolling through “AI slop”, so I don’t want to subject you to it either.

Connection is key.

AI - The Catalyst

cat·a·lyst - a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change.

So how can AI be driving human connection if we have this massive amount of AI generated content? Well, it’s actually exposing social media designs for what they are when you take them to the extreme.

Many of these platforms designed for connection are simply people talking at each other where no one really listens or feels heard. So now we just have AI generated content with AI generated comments. Who’s connecting?

Or on some platforms there are businesses advertising their products and services to other businesses trying to advertise their products and services with no one actually concerned about understanding their consumers’ problems.

Connection is Your Professional Advantage

When we get glimpses of authenticity in these systems, however, we notice it. We know when something feels beautifully human. Wading through the “AI slop” makes us crave that connection to humanity.

Now, you may be wondering what this means for your professional life. So here it is. When AI is writing everyone’s cover letters, resumes, performance reviews, promotion packets, etc, how is anyone supposed to stand out?

Well, the same principle applies here. We know when something feels beautifully human.

Embrace the Pull Back to Connection

Seeking out human connection in your professional life will make you more valuable in the marketplace, in your social life, and to yourself.

With all the time you save from scrolling, go make some human connections and create authentic workplace relationships.

Go to a professional meetup. Schedule a coffee with that grad student who was wanting some guidance. Plan a hike with your colleague. Have a poker night with your favorite work friends. Send a handwritten card. (Ooh, I wonder what would happen if people started sending paper resumes and cover letters again.)

Those human connections have benefits to your career and your life that social media cannot offer.

The impact that AI is having on the workplace is so great that people are feeling the pull to have human connections everywhere, not just at work. The sooner you start this journey the better placed you will be to help others that follow, making you very valuable in their professional journeys. See how that works?