There has been much debate lately about the imminent ‘death’ of social media, sparked by recent Ofcom data showing that people are posting less than ever. It shows just 49% of adult social media users now actively post, share or comment, down from 61% in 2024. Predictably, the LinkedIn obituaries flooded in, as sure as night follows day.
We’ve been here before. As former Thinkbox chair Tess Alps once put it, “TV isn’t dying, it’s having babies.” And social media is no different. It’s simply evolved into something else entirely, converging into new formats that often transcend traditional definitions on the media plan.
Social
The ‘media’ part of social has overtaken the ‘social’ part. Posting is down, and watching is up. Time spent with the channel remains stubbornly high, with UK adults averaging around four and a half hours a day, according to Ofcom’s 2025 Online nations report.
What we’re seeing isn’t a decline in usage, but a shift in behaviour. People aren’t logging off, they’re leaning back. And what they’re leaning into, is entertainment.
Social platforms aggregate attention, prioritise passive consumption and reward content that earns time. Creators have become more influential than friends, and the most successful content looks less like conversation and more like programming.
This shouldn’t really come as a surprise, as social media is entertainment-first. The ‘TikTokification’ of social media was the logical outcome of platforms pivoting to video and optimising relentlessly for attention.
For brands, it is no longer enough to show up on social platforms and throw spend in with some popular creators, hoping proximity alone will translate into impact.
Simon Harwood, Billion Dollar Boy
We have spent years standing in front of the most sophisticated entertainment machine ever built, loudly insisting it was a community noticeboard. Now it seems the penny has dropped.
What we are now seeing is a form of…