I joined Facebook when you still needed a college email address to get in.
I was at Kennesaw State University; it was the early 2000s, and social media wasn’t an industry yet. It was a novelty. You poked people. You agonized over your MySpace Top 8 like it was a diplomatic decision. Nobody was building a personal brand because nobody knew that was a thing you could (or should) build.
I’m squarely a millennial, which means I’ve had a front-row seat for the entire arc of social media. And in 2012, that front-row seat became a job. I was hired as a “Web Operative” at a marketing company in Woodstock, spending my days managing Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube for small businesses back when a comment section felt like a conversation between neighbors. In the years since, I’ve run social media for a medical device company, a software development firm, agencies, and now my own roster of local businesses. Almost 15 years of professional social media. My entire career has been some version of “be online on behalf of someone else.”
So when I read Incogni’s new research on digital fatigue, I didn’t just nod along. I felt seen.
Here’s what their survey of 1,000 American adults found. 55% of people are posting less than they did five years ago. 53% have gotten stricter about who can see what they share. Nearly half have deleted a social media or messaging app because of stress or anxiety, and among millennials, my people, that number jumps to 61%. 44% say political content and polarization make them want to withdraw entirely. And more than half of respondents agreed with a statement that stopped me in my tracks: maintaining an online presence feels like work.
Friends, it IS work. I would know. I’ve been invoicing for it since 2012.
But here’s the part I can’t shake. The people saying it feels like work aren’t social media managers. They’re regular people who just wanted to keep up with their cousins and their college roommates, and somewhere along the way the fun part got buried under algorithm chess, comment-section combat, and an endless scroll of AI-generated…something. The study found that when people finally step away, the most common feeling is peace. Not FOMO. Peace.
I’ve watched this shift happen in real time, on both sides of the screen. The platforms got louder, and the people got quieter.
Now, you might expect someone who sells social media marketing to panic at this data, or worse, to pretend it isn’t happening. I’d rather tell you what I actually tell my clients.
Your audience didn’t leave. They just went quiet. Most people aren’t deleting their accounts; they’re lurking. They still watch, read, and remember. They just stopped performing. Which means social media still matters for your business, but it was never supposed to carry the whole load. And if the room where you’re doing all your marketing is a room people increasingly want to leave, it’s worth asking where else you can meet them.
After 15 years, here’s where I’d put that energy.
Your website and blog, first. It’s the one place online you actually own. No algorithm decides who sees it, no platform can change the rules overnight, and a helpful post you write once can answer client questions for years. Everything I publish on social eventually points people back here, on purpose.
Your email list, second. An inbox is quieter than a feed, and quiet is exactly what people are craving. The same person who scrolls past your reel will read a short, useful note from you, because they invited it. It’s the difference between shouting in a crowded room and being handed someone’s phone number.
Search, third, and this one is my favorite because it asks nothing of your audience. When someone needs a painter, a pediatrician, or a real estate closing attorney, they don’t wait for a post to find them. They go looking. Local SEO, your Google Business Profile, and your reviews do their work while everyone else is fighting for attention, and increasingly, AI tools are pulling from those same sources to make recommendations. Showing up when someone is actively looking for you will always beat interrupting someone who isn’t.
And finally, real life. I know that sounds funny coming from a digital marketer, but some of the best marketing I’ve ever done didn’t involve a screen. Serving on local boards, writing for community magazines, running a networking group, showing up at the events my clients sponsor. One good conversation at a chamber event can outperform a month of posts, and nobody has ever felt burned out by a warm introduction.
None of this means abandoning social media. I’m not, and I don’t recommend my clients do either. It means right-sizing it. Social becomes one piece of the marketing puzzle instead of the whole, and honestly, the pressure drops the moment you make that shift. You stop posting out of guilt and start posting when you have something to say, which, not coincidentally, is exactly the kind of content people who are tired of everything else will still stop for.
The internet I fell in love with in a college dorm room was about connection. I believe that’s still the whole point, even if the settings need adjusting. The businesses that will do well in this quieter era aren’t the loudest ones. They’re the ones who make people feel like a person on the other end actually sees them, wherever that happens: a blog post, an email, a search result, or a handshake.
And if the thought of your own marketing makes you feel like the 61%, take a breath. There’s a calmer way to do this. I’d love to show you.
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