Nowadays a strange but peaceful change is visible. The accounts of people whose feeds were once filled with photos, stories and reels are now silent. Birthday passes, no post, no trip, no photo. There was a lot of laughing and joking with friends all night, but not even a glimpse of it came online. It is not that their life has become boring. Now, living life and showing it to the world, most of the people are choosing the first option. Without making any announcement, without making any big statement, lakhs of people have silently gone into ‘posting zero’ mode.
The latest report of 2025 shows that the number of people creating social media accounts in the world increased by only 4%. But actually the number of people using the platform has decreased by 1.3% i.e. people have kept accounts but have stopped opening and adding anything daily. The biggest change has come in the purpose. Earlier people used to use social media to ‘see where I am, what I am doing.’ Now the top reasons are – talking to friends and family, passing time, reading news, watching funny videos and memes. But ‘showing your life to others’ or ‘telling your opinion to everyone’ has now reached its lowest ebb. Meaning social media has now become like TV – we have become spectators, not heroes.
Earlier it was fun, now it seems like a burden
In the initial days, posting photos on Instagram and Facebook was fun. Even a simple selfie would bring a hundred likes. But gradually the game changed. Now we need perfect light, perfect caption, perfect hashtag, perfect grid. It started taking hours to upload a photo. AI influencers from the top – whose skin is absolutely perfect, hair is absolutely perfect, life is absolutely perfect. We humans started finding our real life more dull. We got tired. Professor Sairaj Pataki of Flame University says, “People felt that despite working so hard, they were not getting the happiness or recognition that they should have got. On top of that, the platforms also no longer seem as genuine and personal as before. The result – people started silently retreating.”
This is not running away, this is stretching your limits.
Clinical psychologist Dr. Rimpa Sarkar says that posting zero is not a negative thing. Rather, it is a kind of digital border line. Many of their clients now have two types of accounts: a public account that remains silent, a private one, or a Finsta (fake Insta) of just 10-20 closest friends, where they post no-makeup photos, sad stories, and stupid jokes. Dr. Sarkar says, ‘These people are not running away from the Internet. They just want that space back where they can be themselves without judgment. Where you don’t have to perform every moment. Dr. Sarkar also warns that some people are really silent because they are afraid. Someone will troll, judge, or dig up old posts. That silence is different, it reflects fear and loneliness. But there is a lightness in the silence of most people. There is a relief. As if a burden has been lifted and a breath has been taken.
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