Bad News: We’re Not Logging Off in 2026 — And the “Offline Is Better” Narrative Is a Delusion
✨Key Points
Social media isn’t optional anymore. For most people, a personal brand is a survival tool in an unstable economy shaped by AI, job insecurity, and shrinking opportunities.
“Going offline” is a privilege, not a trend. Logging off has become a status symbol because real-world alternatives (housing, community, third spaces) are inaccessible to the majority.
Banning social media avoids the real problem. Governments target platforms instead of fixing housing, economic inequality, and the collapse of public social infrastructure.
For the past year, there’s been a steady stream of think pieces claiming that social media has peaked.
Articles in places like the Financial Times point to slowing growth.
Others argue that having fewer followers is suddenly cool, or that going offline has become a new status symbol.
At first glance, it sounds hopeful. Maybe we’re finally done.
Maybe people are reclaiming real life.
But that conclusion skips over a much harder truth.
Why Social Media Isn’t Optional Anymore
Status symbols are only status symbols because they’re inaccessible to most people.
And for the majority of the population in today’s economy, going offline is not accessible.
For most people, a personal brand is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s a survival strategy.
We live in a world where:
A university degree is called “pointless”;
Jobs are framed as temporary thanks to AI;
You’re told to learn to code, then told coding is dead;
Then you’re told to retrain again — and again.
If you don’t have access to significant financial capital, your image becomes the only asset you can reliably own and control.
That creates an economically rational incentive to manage that image constantly.
Not out of vanity — out of necessity.
Because deep down, we’re taught to believe that image defines our economic opportunity, social relevance, and even romantic value.
Social media didn’t invent this pressure. It simply made it scalable.
Even If Social Media Disappeared, the Pressure Wouldn’t
There’s a fantasy floating around that if platforms vanished tomorrow, everyone would suddenly reconnect offline.
That ignores reality.
Even without Instagram, TikTok, or Threads, the expectations would remain. The financial instability would remain
. The anxiety around relevance, employability, and visibility would remain.
Social media is just the infrastructure enabling a deeper cultural transaction.
And this is why people aren’t spending more time offline.
Not because social media is more exciting — but because the real world has become too risky.
The Death of Third Spaces (And Why “Just Go Offline” Doesn’t Work)
If we all logged off tomorrow, where would we actually go?
Western societies have spent the last 50 years dismantling third spaces through underfunding, privatization, and planning decisions that prioritize property value over community life.
What’s left?
Overpriced cafés masquerading as “community”;
Branded wellness spaces;
Aestheticized social environments where belonging is transactional.
These aren’t real third spaces. They’re monetized simulations.
Community now depends on your ability to perform belonging — not simply exist.
Why Social Media Bans Are Political Theater
When governments propose social media bans and frame them as acts of courage, it’s hard not to laugh.
If leaders genuinely want people to spend more time offline, there are obvious steps they could take:
Fix housing markets so people don’t have to move 90 minutes away from friends and family;
Invest in live music, culture, and local venues instead of shutting them down over noise complaints;
Stop extracting wealth from younger and working populations to subsidize asset-owning elites;
Until those issues are addressed, banning social media isn’t brave.
It’s cowardice disguised as moral concern.
The Real Reason We’re Staying Online in 2026
People aren’t clinging to social media because it’s fun.
They’re staying because visibility feels safer than invisibility. Because platforms offer some control in a world where most people feel they have none.
Bad news: we’re not logging off in 2026.
Not because we don’t want to — but because the systems that make logging off possible no longer exist.
