Why People Are Posting Less on Social Media Today

Social platforms are shifting away from personal updates and toward entertainment-driven, algorithm-fed content, according to a new survey from digital privacy company Incogni. The study, based on responses from 1,000 Americans, found that a majority of users are sharing far less than they used to, with many moving their updates into private group chats instead of public feeds.

Posting Has Always Been Concentrated Among Few Users

The survey found that 55% of respondents post less now than they did five years ago. This isn’t an entirely new phenomenon: older Pew Research data showed a small share of Twitter users generated the vast majority of tweets, echoing the long-standing “90-9-1” rule for participation on collaborative platforms, where most people only consume content and just a tiny fraction actively create it. Incogni’s findings suggest that imbalance may now be even more pronounced.

Burnout and Politics Are Driving People Away

More than half of those surveyed said keeping up a social media presence feels like a chore. That pressure is especially strong among younger users chasing creator success, even though most people who try to earn money online make relatively little from it. The report also points to algorithm-driven political content as another factor pushing people away, since emotionally charged posts tend to get amplified, fueling division and driving engagement even as it drains users.

Still, whether people are truly spending less time on these apps is unclear. Meta has reported rising time spent on Facebook and Instagram, largely thanks to short-form video. The bigger shift, then, may not be that people are logging off — it’s that they’re consuming rather than contributing, treating social media more like a streaming service than a place to connect.