• by Steven Rosenbaum , Featured Contributor, November 3, 2025

For years, I’ve written about the failures of social media — its corrosive design, its political fallout, its grip on our attention. But this time, the story feels different. A 22-year-old researcher named Kendall Schrohe has done what most of us assumed was impossible: She mapped 150 platforms that don’t exploit users, don’t feed polarization, and don’t depend on surveillance.

Her report, “The Future of Social Media: There Is Hope,” isn’t just research. It’s a roadmap — a sweeping survey of what a new generation is already building: platforms that reject the logic of manipulation in favor of creativity, privacy, and genuine connection.

When I spoke with her, Kendall said something that stuck with me. She doesn’t believe the goal is to remove technology from our lives — it’s to redesign it intentionally.
“People think algorithms are the problem,” she said. “But algorithms aren’t inherently bad — it’s what they’re built to reward. Big platforms design them to maximize engagement and outrage. But they could be designed to elevate understanding, empathy, or even joy. It’s a choice.”

That idea — that we can choose how our digital systems behave — runs through much of the research. Among the platforms Kendall studied is Sparkable, a nonprofit social network founded by Vardon Hamdiu. Instead of chasing likes, Sparkable curates podcasts, articles, and videos that people across political and cultural divides can actually learn from together.

Vardon didn’t come to this as a startup founder. He worked in the communications office of a Swiss president, taught in universities, and volunteered as a caregiver for refugees. Those experiences — government, academia, and humanitarian work — gave him a front-row view of how disconnected our digital life has become from our shared reality. “The platforms profit from outrage,” he told me. “They keep us scrolling by amplifying what divides us. But when you sit with people in person — refugees, neighbors, whoever — you realize how much truth and empathy get lost online. That’s what Sparkable tries to rebuild.”

Emma Lembke, director of Gen Z advocacy at the Sustainable Media Center, joined the same conversation with Kendall and Vardon. “Our system is broken,” says Lembke. “The status quo is unacceptable. But there’s a movement of young founders who are building alternatives — tools that let people connect, express, and explore without being manipulated by design. I want to see digital spaces that feel nourishing again, that make us more human, not less.”

Across these conversations, I kept hearing the same refrain: We don’t have to accept the current internet as inevitable. There’s no law of physics that says engagement must equal exploitation. What’s emerging instead is a generation of creators who are reimagining the very architecture of online life.

They’re not building “smaller Instagrams.” They’re building social spaces that reject the logic of addiction altogether. Platforms like Minus, which gives each user 100 lifetime posts. Retro, where you share a single photo per week. Pools, a decentralized messaging app that connects small groups without tracking or ads. Perfectly Imperfect, a taste network where recommendations come from people you actually know.

These aren’t niche experiments — they’re prototypes for a better internet. Some use subscriptions or community funding. Others operate as nonprofits or open-source cooperatives. What unites them is an ethic: Connection should serve humanity, not the other way around.

For those of us who’ve been watching the tech landscape for decades, this feels like the first real cultural correction since social media’s rise. The creators leading this shift aren’t trying to reform the giants; they’re routing around them.

When I asked Kendall what she hoped people would take away from her research, she didn’t talk about policy or profit. She said: “I want people to know there’s hope. The future of social media isn’t something that’s going to be handed to us — it’s something we’re already building.”

That line has stayed with me. Because for all the cynicism we’ve learned to carry, the truth is that something real is taking shape. It’s smaller, more intentional, and built from the ground up by people who still believe the internet can be better.

And maybe that’s the most radical idea of all.

You can read the report here.