The poet once wrote: 鈥淭he irony about loneliness is we all feel it at the same time.鈥�

I imagine that , , and other leaders of social media would like to think of their platforms as a refuge for this human condition. After all, windows into each other’s lives have never been easier to look through. has 2.4 billion users who connect and share. , another Facebook-owned property, has .

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Despite those massive user numbers, data tells us we鈥檙e the loneliest we鈥檝e ever been. In fact, the more online you are, the more likely it is that you actually feel alone.

Some of the blame for loneliness is the omni-present like button鈥攁n app feature some confuse for actual affirmation. For others, digital socializing is a contradiction in itself.

鈥淪ocial media has failed in its promise of being social,鈥� said , the founder of , a conversation platform he said is built 鈥渢o help people to rediscover and reconnect over conversations.鈥�

鈥淭he true promise of social media,鈥� he said, 鈥渃an only be realized through real conversations.鈥�

Shah鈥檚 app helps people chat through spoken conversations, which he says are more intimate than the ones that could be had through keyboards or devices.

鈥淭he social apps of the world today have external validation and FOMO as their primary incentives,鈥� said , the , an app which lets individuals screenshare and video chat.

The game, she said, ends up being how we can all get the most likes, comments, and follows.

鈥淚t鈥檚 exhausting and depressing to constantly compare everyone else鈥檚 filtered lives to your own real life,鈥� she said.

Yet the largest social platforms in the world are slowing catching on to the inherent addictiveness of the apps they build.

A Filtered Lens

Instagram is rolling out a version of its app that removes the total number of likes on photos and video views. It is being tested in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan, and New Zealand, according to , a spokesperson for Instagram.

鈥淲e are testing this because we want your followers to focus on the photos and videos you share, not how many likes they get. We don鈥檛 want Instagram to feel like a competition鈥搘e hope to learn whether this change can help people focus less on likes and more on telling their story,鈥� she added. The test began in Canada in May.

Of course, some users have found social media, as is, to be useful. , the CEO of , spends about 19 hours and 44 minutes a week on Twitter, according to his Screen Time app. 1

鈥淭he value of Twitter, for me, is the stuff that is on no one鈥檚 feed,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the DMs that have been really valuable to me. I try to use it as a place where I can have conversations with people and be genuine and share my thoughts.鈥�

Through DMs turned into Zooms and phone calls, Twitter has given him friends in tech in Utah, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

As for quality of conversation, money talk isn鈥檛 deep enough, Lavingia said. Talking about how hard it is to paint with the color green, however, is.

But having that deeper conversation requires a culture shift. It means relying on social media not for the affirmation but for the potential conversation. And it’s possible that culture shift, coupled with less addictive features, is the solution to loneliness induced by social media.

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