The Performance of Living Brought To You By Social Media
Social media used to be about sharing life. Increasingly, it feels like it's about performing one, and the platforms have helped make it that way.
We're spending enormous amounts of time consuming content selected for us by algorithms rather than simply catching up with people we know. Meta reported that 75% of Instagram's U.S. recommendations came from original posts in the fourth quarter of 2025, a 10-percentage-point increase but original doesn't necessarily mean authentic.
According to DataReportal's Digital 2026 Global Overview, online adults spend an average of 18 hours and 36 minutes each week consuming social and video feeds. Yet 50.2% of social media users still cite keeping in touch with friends and family as a primary reason for using these platforms. There's a growing tension between what draws us to social media and the content we're increasingly encouraged to consume.
There's an entire ecosystem rewarding people for playing the part of an “interesting person online.” The more curated, aspirational, outrageous or entertaining the performance, the more attention it can attract.
What I miss about social media is the mundane. Friends sharing everyday moments, discovering music and culture. Real news from credible sources and people simply being people. Not everything needed a narrative, a personal brand or be underpinned by an audience strategy.
The business model has changed the behavior.
Instagram's Adam Mosseri identified watch time, likes and sends as three of the platform's most important ranking signals in 2025. When attention and sharing influence distribution, creators naturally adapt their content to capture both. It's a feedback loop where the performance of living can become more valuable than the experience itself.
Marketers aren't innocent bystanders.
Influencer marketing has become a $24 billion industry, yet research cited by Harvard Business Review found that 88% of consumers value authenticity while nearly half believe most influencers are fake. Brands have helped create this tension through partnerships and content strategies that sometimes prioritize engagement over genuine connection.
But authenticity isn't about production quality. An unpolished video can be carefully manufactured, while a beautifully produced campaign can communicate something deeply human. The question is whether there's something real behind the content.
We're all being conditioned, to varying degrees, to consider how our lives appear to others rather than simply experiencing them. There's an irony in platforms built to connect us increasingly rewarding the behaviors that can make genuine connection harder. Maybe we don't need more interesting people online. We need more people comfortable being ordinary.
Perhaps brands should ask themselves whether they're helping people connect or simply giving them another performance to consume, because not every moment needs to become content.
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