Perhaps from your vantage point. My vantage point is more and more people are ditching the social sites for real connections again. A few years ago when privacy issue after privacy issue came out, and the revelations on how manipulated we all are on social media by algorithms, my circle decided to ditch social media. I was always the "pioneer" in this front, having ditched it around 2015 or so.

The craziest thing started happening when I got rid of it. I started getting these crazy old things called "phone calls." And people started sending out these really cool decorated cards called "invitations" that apparently come to my house through this really old but fascinating technology called "mail". Real life actual people started walking past me on my neighborhood road and inviting me to house parties or get-togethers again. I met so many wonderful neighbors since!

It had this amazing other side effect as well: it acted like a filter for all the events I used to "miss". Suddenly, it's as if the weight of FOMO was lifted off my shoulders.

But illustrative snark aside, I suppose its going to vary from circle to circle and group to group. My hunch tells me a lot more people simply tolerate social media because they realize much of society has hitched it's wagon to it, and they see this as an unfortunate thing, and it will take just one person in the group to break the mold.

I too see people in my circle ditching social media, but the transition seems to have been to messenger apps. People will message directly to each other, or in group chatrooms.

Yes I have definitely seen signal use increase by my very non academic estimate of 10x. I see a "so and so contact has joined Signal!" notification every few days consistently for a while now.