We’re living in an age where the internet binds us all together. It makes it easy for us to connect with someone across the globe with just a few taps on our devices. But what if one day, this sole medium of connection loses its relevance? This is the phenomenon of posting zero that has taken over the internet.
It’s as if we’ll soon wake up to a day when there are absolutely no new posts online, no updates, and no spam because people have decided it’s not convenient anymore.
What will happen if the internet suddenly goes silent because it starts to lose its very essence?
What Is Posting Zero?
Posting zero is a slow trend taking over the whole world, where people are gradually getting tired of posting anything online. This is happening because the internet is full of AI-curated posts, bot models and irrelevant advertisements, which is driving people towards its less use.
What was once the loud ground for hyperconnection with the world has slowly turned irrelevant. It’s a situation when the entire globe is online, yet nothing ever happens. It is a kind of void caused digitally that has pushed people towards no engagement online.
As per a study published by The Financial Times, with about 2,50,000 online users across almost 50 countries, it was reported that the use of social media has dropped by about 10 per cent. This decline was led by youngsters, who, ironically, are the flagbearers of this online generation.
The term Posting Zero was first coined by Kyle Chayka in The New Yorker’s weekly called Infinite Scroll, as he threw light on how the ritual of sharing life updates online was becoming “rarer”.
Chakya explained, “We might also be heading toward something like Posting Zero, a point at which normal people—the unprofessionalized, uncommodified, unrefined masses—stop sharing things on social media as they tire of the noise, the friction, and the exposure.
Posting Zero would mean the end of social media as it was once conceptualized, as a real-time record of the world created by anyone who was experiencing anything at all.”
He spoke about the times when people used social media as a platform to share their day-to-day life events, and how the practice is now becoming extinct.
Katty Kay, Special Correspondent, BBC, shared in an interview, “I have kids who are in their 20s and teens. There was a whole feeling amongst my generation that kids today don’t care about privacy, and they’re happy to put anything online.
I’m wondering if we were wrong about that, that young people tasted this world where everything was put out there in public, and now they’re thinking, “Actually, I’d rather my groups were more intimate and curated,“ as opposed to the whole world knowing what I had for breakfast.”
This partly explains the psychology behind the young generation’s sudden retreat from social media.
These individuals have been born with screens in their hands, with every detail from around the world accessible within seconds. They may have viewed the internet as their only source of communication with the rest of the world, to the point that real-life relationships became challenging.
Perhaps that’s why, after having seen the highs as well as the lows, the kind of connection that slowly scrapes away real-life conversation skills, access to the world that often comes with their privacy constantly at stake, this generation has started to step back.
Read More: Overwhelmed By Online Negativity? Bloomscrolling Is The Way Out
What Does This Mean?
So, why is the online generation choosing not to be online anymore?
This comes down to what experts call the “Dead Internet Theory”, which is a theory claiming that everything on the internet is presumably “dead”. What this really means is that most of the content we find online is generated using AI and not real people.
Talking about this, Kyle Chayka wrote in his column, “The presence of normies was what made social media worth tuning into. In their wake, like detritus on a once busy beach, there will be only dry corporate marketing, A.I.-generated slop, and dreck from thirsty hustlers attempting to monetize a dwindling audience of voyeurs.”
Another explanation for the Posting Zero phenomenon is “enshittification” or “crapification”. As unique as it sounds, what this term really means is the degradation in quality of the content available online and of the platforms altogether.
This term was coined by the journalist Cory Doctorow back in November 2022. We can use it to explain what’s happening to online platforms today: the slow downfall of the content available for us to consume.
Almost everything online starts with sending off great marketing gimmicks and attracting consumers, only to eventually turn disengaged and cluttered. This happens because, with time, platforms start to prioritise monetisation of content over engagement and relatability.
Everywhere you look, everything available online now feels like a compilation of ads and clickbait thumbnails, made only to garner views. This has made people want to withdraw from engaging with things online because it seems to have lost its very purpose: communication and relatability.
Long story short, Posting Zero isn’t a boycott of the usage of online platforms; it is the withdrawal from what doesn’t feel human, not the death of the internet, but the wish to make it feel more alive.
Images: Google Images
Sources: ThePrint, BBC, Times of India
Find the blogger: @shubhangichoudhary_29
This post is tagged under: posting zero, dead internet theory, social media decline, gen z internet habits, digital burnout, ai generated content, enshittification, online disengagement, future of social media, internet culture, digital minimalism, online privacy, social media trends 2025, hyperconnectivity, digital void, social media psychology, internet addiction, online communication
Disclaimer: We do not hold any rights or copyright over any of the images used; these have been taken from Google. In case of credits or removal, the owner may kindly email us.
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