Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats
I&#x27;ve been observing a pattern that I&#x27;ve been trying to articulate here and I can best describe as a framework where stuff &#x27;comes to you&#x27; whereas the Internet for a long time was an enabler of &#x27;you go to stuff&#x27;.  The pendulum swung back, thanks to ad tech, and centralization, that have or are trying to orchestrate a culture shift.  Okay, here are some concrete examples.<p>1.  Television&#x2F;cable (absent a TiVo type device), things come to you (ads and programming were fixed and you had to conform to their schedule back in the not-so-old days).  Early 2000s, we could download content (illegally), we could pay for Netflix to send us DVDs of our choosing, and the algorithm was benevolent: its recommendations were superb. 
 Russian and French directors I positively rated -- ratings 1 through 5 stars plus a written review were permitted back then -- opened my world to suggestions for other movies that I got to select.   Today, Netflix&#x2F;HBO&#x2F;etc display a limited UI set of options, highly hyped shows and movies shown repeatedly, and it now Comes To You.  You have a tiny bit of choice, but not much.<p>2.  Google search.  Before, it was a resource for you to customize and find what you wanted:  information about medicine, a product, or a store.  Now, it Comes To You.  You search for thing X, you end up in a rabbit hole of Y and Z topics or things, and a lot of things seem algorithmically generated or manufactured to steer you rather than help you.<p>There are many many patterns like this, from news searches to even tech problem searches and articles.  Don&#x27;t even get started on product comparisons.  It&#x27;s scary I can&#x27;t even search on medicine interactions (I add reddit to the search field).<p>I should add, web sites all have their own mobile app so you get trapped, they can steer you, and you can&#x27;t control ads, the UI, cut and paste, and so on.  Thanks, world in which Things Come to Us now.<p>Such as it is:  a heavy weight on pulling and steering us, and new generations growing up on phones not knowing it could be different.<p>Phones are an extension of our organ senses now.  How will a world in which Things Come to Us and We Dont Go to Things anymore affect us cognitively long-term?