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Had a chat with a teenager about why my old posts get no engagement anymore
My niece was visiting last weekend and I showed her a forum thread I wrote back in 2019 that I thought was pretty smart. She scrolled past it in like two seconds and said the title was too long and boring. I got defensive at first but she showed me how her feed works, it's all short punchy titles with a clear opinion right up front. She said algorithms favor posts that get a quick reaction, not ones where you have to think about clicking. That hit different because I realized I've been writing for the old internet where people actually read paragraphs before deciding. Now I'm trying to shorten everything and lead with the hot take, but it feels weird being taught social media tricks by a 16 year old. Has anyone else had to totally change how they write just to get seen these days?
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spencer_gonzalez119d ago
Wait, is that actually how kids scroll now? I tried showing my nephew a video I thought was funny last summer, and he just kept swiping past it saying "too slow, too slow." It's wild because I totally had the same thing happen with @amy_martin's post about changing your writing style. My niece even told me to start my posts with a question or a bold opinion so people stop to think for half a second before they scroll. I'm still not used to leading with the punchline instead of building up to it, but I guess that's just how the feed works now.
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