It’s not often that a technological trend reversing course feels like good news.
But a report in the Financial Times last week noted something remarkable: global time spent on social media has begun to decline — across all adult age groups.
After more than a decade of relentless growth, people are finally spending less of their day scrolling through the algorithmic soup of outrage and noise that platforms like Facebook and X have perfected to keep us glued to our screens. And this might just be the best thing that’s happened to civic discourse — and our mental health — in years.
For too long, the social media ecosystem has rewarded outrage over healthy debate, provocation over nuance. The architecture of these platforms — their engagement-hungry algorithms — is built to reward those who shout the loudest and punish those who pause to think. The result has been a coarsening of public discourse, where the bullies, grifters and demagogues thrive, while reasonable, centrist voices are drowned out in the cacophony emanating from the extremes.
The platforms’ recommendation engines learn what keeps us hooked — anger, fear, tribalism — and feed us a steady diet of it, all with the aim of maximising “engagement” and selling us more advertising. In doing so, they’ve rewired how entire societies process disagreement. Every argument becomes a zero-sum game; every opponent, an enemy.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the US, where the populist (and increasingly authoritarian) right — embodied by Donald Trump and his MAGA movement — has turned online polarisation into a political weapon. What began as a sideshow on X and Facebook has turned into a full-blown assault on civility, truth and democratic norms. The spectacle of a sitting president hurling insults at his predecessor would have been unthinkable in US politics just a decade ago. Today it’s part of the daily feed.
Meta and X didn’t invent incivility, but they have industrialised it and weaponised it. Every angry comment and viral meme is a hit of dopamine — and a profit-making opportunity. Platforms that once promised connection now specialise in division.
Every angry comment and viral meme is a hit of dopamine — and a profit-making opportunity. Platforms that once promised connection now specialise in division
The FT’s analysis suggests many of us are wising up to this. Across much of the developed world, people — especially youngsters — are spending less time online, perhaps sensing that endless doomscrolling is neither nourishing their minds nor fun any more. Only the US bucks the trend, with consumption of social media still climbing — and it’s there, unsurprisingly, that polarisation has reached its toxic zenith.
South Africa hasn’t yet gone down this road to the same extent. Our politics can be noisy, but it has largely remained grounded in civil debate. We still have a culture — however fragile — of political opponents shaking hands after an argument. Yet the warning lights are flashing for our society too.
If there’s a lesson from the US, it’s that this corrosion doesn’t happen overnight. It creeps in as social norms erode, as people become used to the idea of insulting one another online (and then offline). The risk is that it festers, unchecked, and then grows into something hideous. The recent assassination of American conservative activist Charlie Kirk, whatever one’s views of him, underscores how far the rot in the US has spread. When disagreement becomes hatred, violence isn’t far behind.
That’s why the social media slowdown represents a potentially positive shift. If we’re lucky, the decline in engagement marks the start of a bigger trend: a re-emergence of decency and the middle ground and a realisation by people that their emotions are being manipulated by sophisticated algorithms for profit.
Imagine what could fill the void: meaningful conversations, communities rediscovering common purpose and journalism that rewards curiosity instead of clicks.
None of this will happen automatically. The same economic forces that built the algorithmic monster will try to lure us back with new tricks — AI-generated “slop”, for example, designed to keep us scrolling even when we know better.
The FT calls it “dopamine-dense” junk food for the mind. It’s toxic, it’s damaging our societies, and we need to recognise the danger it poses.
We’ve seen what happens when the loudest voices dominate and civility is eroded. The alternative isn’t nostalgia for a pre-digital past — it’s simply a recommitment to treating each other as human beings.
If social media truly has peaked and is now in structural decline, we should all welcome it. It might signal the start of a slow return to a more civil discourse and a rejection of the platforms that profit by dividing us.
McLeod is editor of TechCentral
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