Misinformation and toxic users turn people off social media – Gartner

Gartner has been out and about gauging public sentiment, and has subsequently predicted that 50 percent of consumers are expected to abandon or significantly limit their social media interactions by 2025. Furthermore, 53 percent said the current state of social media has "decayed" over either the last 12 months or compared to five years ago.

It doesn't take a genius to guess what might be turning people off, but Gartner's research note spells it out anyway:

"The top reasons for this perceived decline were the spread of misinformation, toxic user bases, and the prevalence of bots."

The hype surrounding generative AI doesn't appear to be helping social media's image either, with 70 percent of consumers believing that greater integration of GenAI into social media will harm the user experience.

Gartner called on CMOs take this sentiment into account.

"Social media remains the top investment channel for digital marketing, but consumers are actively trying to limit their use," said Emily Weiss, senior principal researcher in the Gartner Marketing Practice. "A significant slice says that, compared to a few years ago, they are sharing less of their own lives and content. As the nature of social media use and the experience of the platforms changes, CMOs must refocus their customer acquisition and loyalty retention strategies in response."

Elon Musk, with his well-documented and chaotic reign as CEO of X-formerly-known-as-Twitter, has become the poster child for how not to run a social media company.

On top of the mass layoffs, his unending drive to be king of the edgelords has sent many big advertisers running for the hills.

Bloomberg this week reported that X's annual ad revenue is expected to fall by $1.5 billion this year compared to last. Sources familiar with the figures said the company originally targeted combined ad and subscription revenue of $3 billion, but it is expected to fall far short of that number.

As the mood soured over at X, several new platforms entered the public consciousness, like Mastodon, Post, Bluesky, and of course Instagram offshoot Threads.

What followed was the social media equivalent of manning the lifeboats, as jaded X users – some more high profile than others – sought out unspoiled lands upon which to rebuild their online lives.

But for one reason or another – whether it's because they haven't reached the same critical mass of members, or because the user experience is too different – none can really lay claim to being 'the new Twitter'. Not even Threads, which made headlines by signing up 30 million users on its first day, and reached 100 million in less than one week.

However, there is more to social media than X and its competitors, of course, and many of them are still in rude health.

Survey results published by Pew Research Centre this week reveal that 13-17-year-olds' usage of social media apps is unchanged since spring 2022. 63 percent of teens use TikTok, while Snapchat (60 percent) and Instagram (59 percent) are both still very popular too. 58 percent of teens said they use TikTok every day.

Conversely, use of Facebook among this group has slumped from 71 percent in 2014-15 to 33 percent today. Pew said X "has also seen its teen user base shrink during the past decade – albeit at a less steep decline than Facebook."

Interestingly, Pew also measured use of BeReal for the first time, and found that 13 percent of teens are using it. BeReal tries to differentiate by eschewing the social media trend of convincing people (and yourself) that you're living your best life and instead aims for authenticity. It does this by encouraging users to post an unvarnished photo of whatever they happen to be doing during a randomly-chosen 2-minute window of time, once per day.

The contrasting findings from Gartner's and Pew's surveys – considered against the backdrop of all the turmoil over at X – suggest that social media is in a state of flux rather than in its death throes.