What exactly is yesterday’s social media? I mean, aren’t we moving at such a fast pace nowadays that what was popular yesterday is already old news today?

Yes and no. The way I see ‘yesterday’s social’ is the way I look at a teenager vs. someone who’s older and has seen more of the world. As teenagers we’ve all made mistakes. And hopefully, we’ve all learned from them. At least for the most part.

That’s how I see social media evolving these days. I think we were so excited by the possibilities of social media when we first started using it that we didn’t pause to examine its potential flaws. It was that shiny new toy we couldn’t stop playing with. In many ways, it still is that toy. But it’s time for something better, something more grown-up.

It’s also useful to reflect on what went wrong with yesterday’s social media. So, in the spirit of learning from our mistakes, here are three things I learned from social in its teenager phase.

1. Your environment defines you.

We’ve all heard it before: you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. That’s true, except on social media, where it’s more like we are the average of the five thousand, or five million people we spend time with. And if you’ve ever caught yourself scrolling through a feed of strangers on their picture-perfect vacations, you are spending time with these people. The question is: do you want to be? Or, would you rather surround yourself with people who don’t make you feel bad about the cubicle you’re working in, but motivate you push yourself to learn guitar or finish that short story when you come home from work? I’ll leave it up to you. I know I would choose the second option.

2. Convenience is more important than you think.

I know that in this day and age we have everything we would ever need to succeed. We have all the tools and apps at our fingertips in order to build the life we want to live. And yet, many of us feel defeated and less-than when we check social media. Instead of giving us inspiration, it’s making us feel worse.

Part of the reason for that is not only what we’re looking at but how we’re doing it. Our attention is pulled in a million different directions, to the point where just switching from one social media app to another depletes our ability to focus and we literally have less and less mental energy to do anything meaningful. This kind of attention residue is ruining our concentration, making us focus on which app we’re using rather than immersing ourselves in creating content and discovering new inspiration. I realized that if I truly want to be productive on social media to promote my work or simply to connect with likeminded people, I needed to make it as easy as possible to do all that in a seamless way.

3. It’s easy to consume more than you create.

We’ve all been there: scrolling through our feeds, hoping to find that new article that will change your life or entertain you enough to make you forget about the less-than-ideal day you’ve had. Half an hour later, you’re still scrolling and there’s no sign of that elusive article. You’ve found a few that interest you and you’ve bookmarked them, but let’s be real: you won’t go back to them. At most, you’ll glance at the headline and consider it read.
Ok, so maybe that is the worst case scenario and maybe you’re content consumption habits are a bit more refined than that. Still, maybe you use social media so that you’re entertained but still feel hollow.

After that long scrolling session you think: when was the last time I contributed to a conversation about a topic I truly care about? When was the last time I added my own voice to the mix?

Now for the good news. I kept all of these lessons in mind when I was designing the kind of social media platform that I would want to use. With the help of a lot of brilliant and talented people, I developed uSync, a social media platform that is a better, more streamlined version of all the ones that I, and a lot of other people, feel like they’ve outgrown. If you’re like me and you’ve been feeling like you need a change in the way you consume and create content on social media, give uSync a try.