There is an interesting thing about mainstream "social media" that people don't seem to full appreciate - which is that it isn't social. Yeah, I know everyone "knows" that, but there is more to it than the voyeuristic consumption of content, because the content doesn't matter in terms of engagement, because engagement doesn't matter. It isn't about people connecting, it is all about people consuming.
This is why they choose to highlight views as important.
Views aren't engagement.
Engagement is when two people talk to each other somewhat directly. It is where two people are connected for some period of time, So views aren't the metric to highlight this, interaction is. People can drive past a car crash and view the scene with the police cars and crumpled remains of the accident, but they do not engage with it. They do not stop. If they were the first on the scene though, perhaps it would be an engaging event, that compels more interaction than a view.
And the comments on a lot of mainstream social media content is pathetic. For instance, I was reading an article today about some teen (19) who was "fooled" by interaction with an AI account - thinking it was a real person. Easy to do perhaps these days, but what is more interesting is the examples of what made her think she was interacting with a person. I will highlight some of them here.
“One day I posted on my notes on Instagram, ‘I need a f***ing cigarette’, and then she put on her notes … ‘Lilly’s right’ or something like ‘Lilly spits facts’.”
Ms Davis said she responded to the account’s post, thanking her for making her feel “special”, to which the account responded back: “You’re always special”.
The teenager then commented on a recent video of a girl posted by the account, calling her gorgeous. “(The account) replied to my comment being like ‘not as gorgeous as you’, and then someone replied to my comment saying her account is AI,” Ms Davis added.
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“I was with my best friend and I was like, ooh … am I f***ing stupid?”
Not because she was fooled by an AI, but because these kinds of inane, useless, pointless, basic comments were enough to make this girl feel special. To feel anything at all. Even if it was a real person, it is coming from a stranger on the internet that has shared a few very short sentences with obvious mirroring, that provides no actual value to the conversation.
And apparently...
"Many social media users were in disbelief at how AI is able to mimic people’s accounts so well."
“How is that possible?,” one said.
“Oh this would creep me out omg,” another added.
A third said: “The fact that AI has advanced so hard that it can just fake being a person we can follow and develop “acquaintance” with on social media is SO dystopian like we are gonna be living a sci-fi nightmare really quick.
What these people really should be asking themselves is; if this kind of interaction is mimicking people's accounts so well, what the fuck is wrong with us? If this kind of interaction is making me feel special, what the fuck is wrong with me?! This isn't some hardcore advanced AI that is passing the Turing Test, it is a pathetic interaction that would fail a primary school project to write a script for a play.
Because it is about views. The content, whether posts or comments, are about maximising the amount of individuals who "view" the content as they scroll past and get fed more ads. The content is just to provide something to scroll and a range of content that can be measured as interest topics, as they track every aspect of a users behaviour, from the active clicks and taps, to the more passive speed of scroll and whether a user slows down on some types of posts over others. And then they use that data to push targeted content and ads to give more Time on Site metrics to up prices for advertisers and what not.
For the platform, it really doesn't matter what the content is, whether it gets engagement, or if it is all generated by AI, as long as the individual user keeps on scrolling. They don't care about social interaction at all. Even shares are less vital now, because the algorithms are pushing content out to network groups anyway.
I keep highlighting the "individual" user, because that is what the platforms actually encourage. Individuals. It isn't about build a social network, it is about targeting individual people to buy a product or an idea. That individual can be the most introverted, voyeuristic user who has never interacted with any other account on a platform, but that doesn't matter. As long as the platform can leverage them as a consumer, job done.
A lot of people think Hive should be more like the other social medias, because that is where people are. But it is more akin to a mass grave, where interpersonal interaction goes to die. The creator accounts there are just trying to drive the algorithms and care very, very little for any actual engagement. Accounts with millions of followers, but how much engagement with the creator? It is just a lot of individuals (as well as AIs and bots) commenting on a post, to get a feeling of connection - even though it is all one way.
The median engagement rate for brands on X in 2025 is only 0.015%. For influencers, the average rate in 2024 was 0.09%. These figures mean that the vast majority of posts receive minimal interaction.
This is a term I have used to describe mainstream social media for over a decade at least, and it is evident in the reaction to the AI account quoted above. People are so unaccustomed to getting real interaction on or off the platforms, that they are reacting to the most basic kinds of comments, as if they are being served gold, on a silver platter.
Also, when it comes to AI taking over, it shows how it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't even have to be great, it just has to be more active than humans. And that is something that we can't beat it at in the digital space. The only way we can beat AI in this area, is to get off the mainstream medias and engage with real people in meaningful ways. And that has to spill into the physical world also. More time should be spent with real people, face to face, than through screens. Because if that happened, the internet interactions wouldn't trigger a positive emotional response, when all they offer is;
“You’re always special”.
If you feel special because a stranger (or AI) on the internet says, "You're always special" - you need to fix your life.
Taraz
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