Social Media Is Broken. Here's What We Build Instead.

Kindred: Digital hearths for human flourishing

🌸 ikigai 生き甲斐 is a reason for being, your purpose in life - from the Japanese iki 生き meaning life and gai 甲斐 meaning worth 🌸

Back in 1998, it was hard work convincing people to go online, but the "killer app" was always human connection… having a chat, sharing a laugh, maybe learning something together. Those who were mean got moderated by actual humans who cared about their nascent communities.

I was a young employee at a newly launched ISP, teaching myself just enough HTML and web design to make pages people actually wanted to visit. Before forums, I had a simple guestbook where I’d manually edit replies in to the code. Even then, I was building community.

Looking back, that slower effort to connect wasn’t a bad thing.

We did eventually find global spaces full of early internet magic, Blogger and MySpace in particular had my heart! Facebook and Twitter may have started okish, but oh my gosh they are awful now, and the deeply problematic men running them are worse. I barely touch X, and Facebook lingers solely because it’s the only place people on the Isle of Man post about what’s going on.

I’m not ashamed to admit that LinkedIn has long been one of my faves. Being a girly swot and world of work obsessed, I love professional networks with real names and consequences for bad behaviour. Reddit too despite its reputation, feels like textured community thanks to clear norms and strong moderation.

LinkedIn is fraying. Posts about equality get carpet-bombed by men explaining why the patriarchy isn’t real. Trolls get their dopamine hit, others give up and thoughtful voices disappear. All our feeds drowning in noise, self-promotion or AI-generated slop. The sense of care, that someone is tending the community’s health, has gone missing.

So what if we rebuilt social media from scratch, guided by ikigai?

"Social media" as a term traps us in a broken paradigm of broadcasting, performing and consuming content.

We need something fundamentally different. Spaces for genuine connection and community, built around small joys, presence, harmony with others and purpose.

As Chika Uwazie so perfectly puts it: "Culture first. Code second. Community always." That's exactly the order we need to get right.

Kindred - a sketch of something different

I’ve been toying with product design and specs for a new service called Kindred, built with respect for human limits the current platforms exploit… our attention and our craving for connection and an embodied life.

I'm not alone in imagining better, Rowena Wilding recently shared what she'd change if she ran LinkedIn; curated feeds surfacing new voices, a commons for "steal with credit" resources, collaboration buttons instead of just connection and algorithms that actively correct inequality. Her ideas point towards the same truth, we need platforms built for generosity, not extraction.

Deeper change is needed alongside tactical fixes, here are some of my thoughts;

Fix 1 - Compassionate friction

Fewer, better posts. Imagine only three post credits per week. You’d spend them carefully. Add topic focus, selecting five hashtags on joining. These become your domains of contribution. You can only post, rank highly or comment meaningfully within these chosen areas. You become known for something. Trolls can't hop between topics spreading chaos, they're contained within their declared interests, where community norms and credibility actually matter.

To keep AI-slop at bay, picture a simple Paste Alert system. When you paste content into a post rather than composing, a gentle form appears "Is AI assisting with this post?" If yes, it could either be disallowed, or tagged as such, or you'd have to also add a sentence or two of personal context, why this matters to you, what your experience adds, how it connects to your life or work… we could experiment to see what works best!

Importantly we could discourage copy and pasting AI but still be inclusive, perhaps by designing an Assistive Mode for users who need it. A private setting that bypasses restrictions, posts showing a small 🌱 "assistive tech used" icon without exposing anyone's diagnosis or personal information. This way, we protect the right to accessibility while still encouraging authentic contribution.

The goal is to ensure that when AI helps with the mechanics, humans still add the meaning. Quality signals would boost posts with lived experience, proper citations or genuine experiments over generic reposts, regardless of how they were created.

Imagine gentle speed bumps built into a system;

• Aim Line - every post starts with a declaration; Help | Ask | Showcase | Sell

• Steelman Start - replies begin by paraphrasing the other person's point, proving you actually listened

• Reflection Pause - a 60-second "read and reflect" timer before commenting on heated discussions

Not censorship. Not shame. Just compassionate friction to slow us down enough to mean what we say.

Fix 2 - Kind commerce

If you don’t curate your feed well, LinkedIn can feel like a marketplace of noisy desperation. Coaches selling courses to other coaches and consultants promising solutions to problems it doesn’t sound like they've ever faced. All extraction, no contribution.

Real communities thrive on reciprocity, give before you ask. What if platforms required it?

Answer three questions or share a truly useful resource before posting an offer.

For every sales post, you'd schedule one "gift post" within the week, a resource, a lesson, a connection that helps others. Miss your contribution quota and your reach gently decreases. Simple. Fair. Rooted in the ikigai principle that our work should serve others, not just ourselves.

This transforms social commerce from attention-grabbing into genuine value exchange. When someone offers their services, you already know they're generous with knowledge. Their offers come with Kind Commerce Cards, who it's for, expected outcome, honest pricing, refund policy. No trickery, no vague promises.

All the best people I follow already have these principles as personal rules. If anything, they do too much of the genuinely helpful stuff for free. Maybe the reverse could also be built in to help straighten out our societal biases, people who do too much free stuff being reminded to post things they need or want!

Fix 3 - Touch grass protocols

I don’t actually think it a radical idea to design new online tools that actively encourage you offline. We know ikigai more often lives in gooseberry picking, conversations with neighbours, the dog tugging your sleeve for a walk. Not in endless scrolls.

Imagine a Kind Exit after thirty minutes "You've taken in quite a lot, fancy a walk or a brew?" No shame about screen addiction. Just caring recognition that presence, one of ikigai's core principles, happens in the physical world too.

Picture Local Impact Badges for real-world contribution; mentoring someone, speaking at a community event, organising a neighbourhood project. These badges count more than likes or clicks. Suddenly, influential voices are people making actual difference, not just digital noise.

Platforms could facilitate this directly. Posts ending with "I'm interested in..." could offer inbuilt mechanisms for sign-ups for fifteen-minute chats or local meetup dropins. Success measured by offline connections and real-world collaborations born from digital introductions.

This creates a gorgeous ikigai harmony, digital conversations meaningful enough to continue in person, online relationships deepening through shared physical experiences, platforms serving as bridges to embodied community rather than substitutes for it.

Fix 4 - Find your tribe, bridge to others and offer repair paths

We need spaces to find our people too. Not algorithmic suggestions based on who we've stalked, but maybe there could be something in Values-Based Discovery, picking the principles that matter to you, getting nudged towards communities sharing at least three. Smaller spaces with Room Charters you actually want to live by.

From there, Bridge Threads, monthly conversations between different communities, like a knitting circle meeting a climate action group. Magic happens at the edges and intersections where different wisdom traditions meet.

When someone missteps, ikigai suggests persistence and second chances rather than exile. What if we offered Repair Paths, acknowledge impact, amend the post, share a relevant resource? A culture that heals rather than banishes. Modelling a better way to be and gently encouraging others to want to join in and experience real care and compassion, as well as constructive debate.

What changes with this?

Everything.

You're not posting because you're bored. You're asking yourself is this worth one of my three slots? Does this align with my chosen expertise? Am I adding my genuine perspective? Will this help someone in my community?

Compassionate constraints liberate us. Ikigai invites us to slow down, notice small joys, find harmony with others. Current platforms make that nearly impossible. They reward outrage over wisdom, speed over reflection, individualism over collective care.

But imagine something more like a hearth… a circle of kindred spirits sharing stories, offering healing, building community through presence rather than performance. A place that doesn’t steal your attention but enriches it. That doesn’t isolate you but connects you more deeply to your actual community.

We need more of these sacred spaces, online and off.

Culture first. Code second. Community always. Thoughtful design that nudges us towards our better angels and has our health and safety at it’s heart.

The platforms we have aren't inevitable. They're choices, and we can make better ones guided by what truly serves human flourishing.

If you could redesign one feature of social media tomorrow, what would align it better with your values?

Who's ready to build the internet we actually want to gather around, to prototype kindred connections with me?

Sarah, seeking ikigai xxx

PS - Bullet journal prompt on this topic; If you had only three posts a week within five chosen categories, what would they be and why? What does this reveal about your genuine passions and proficiencies?

PPS - AI Coaching Prompt;

“Ask me five thoughtful questions about how I currently use social media (for example: why I open it, when I feel good/bad after using it, who I connect with most, and what I wish it gave me). After hearing my answers, create a personalised 7-day plan for social media that reduces noise, increases genuine reciprocity and nudges me towards offline presence. Each day should include one intentional action, one reflection, and one ‘touch grass’ suggestion.”

PPPS – Soundtrack; You Get What You Give – New Radicals. Released in 1998, it was the backdrop to my evenings visiting people’s houses to set up their dial-up modems so they could join our fledgling online community. The song carries such a hopeful, defiant energy, perfect for belting out in the car… but it’s also about reciprocity, which is what real life (and healthy community) should be about. We should give without expectation, yet also recognise that connection (and therefore society) thrives on mutual service. Our online spaces need to reflect that same healthy rhythm, encouraging generosity without trapping us in endless addiction loops.