What People Hate About Social Media Apps

…and why creatives are quietly walking away

We scroll because it’s easy. We share because it’s expected. But behind every like, every view, every perfectly lit moment — there’s fatigue.

What people hate about social media isn’t just the noise or the narcissism. It’s the sense that these apps, once a way to express and connect, have become something hollow — tools that extract attention instead of nurturing creativity.

The Feed That Feeds on You

Every app claims to know you. What it really knows is how to keep you. The algorithm doesn’t care about art, curiosity, or nuance — it cares about engagement. The longer you linger, the more you see, the more data you give. It’s not personalization; it’s prediction. And most people can feel it.

The Endless Performance

We were told to “be authentic” — but only if it performs well. Social media has turned creativity into content and life into a stage. The constant demand to appear perfect, clever, or relevant wears people down. Artists start making work for the algorithm instead of for themselves. And when everything becomes a performance, sincerity gets lost.

The Collapse of Quiet

There’s no silence on social media. No pause between posts. No room for reflection. What once felt communal now feels compulsive. Creators, photographers, and thinkers — the ones who used to bring depth — are leaving for smaller, slower spaces. Email lists. Private communities. Offline projects. They’re choosing substance over presence.

The Privacy Mirage

People don’t mind sharing. They mind being harvested. Every platform says your data is safe — and yet the ads always know. The trade-off for “free” has become too obvious: privacy for participation. It’s a quiet rebellion, but it’s growing — a refusal to be both the audience and the product.

The Creative Cost

For many artists, the platforms that once liberated them now exhaust them. The endless posting, hashtagging, and engagement-chasing isn’t creation — it’s maintenance. The more the algorithm demands, the less art gets made.

Why We Stay

Because leaving is complicated. Friends, clients, followers — they all live there. And sometimes, so do opportunities. But the truth is, what people really crave isn’t another update. It’s connection that feels real, not optimized. The kind that doesn’t disappear when you close the app.

In the End

Social media has made us hyper-visible but under-seen. The remedy isn’t total disconnection — it’s intention.
To share less, but mean more. To scroll slower. To create for the joy of creating, not for the metrics. It’s not about leaving social media. It’s about reclaiming what we lost there.