Too much but never enough. : A qualitative interview study on users' experiences of today's changing media landscape

Social media, something that has become an immediate part of people's everyday lives, reaches us at a pace that has never been seen before. Previous research shows that media users today are exposed to the content of the platforms to a greater extent than ever before. At the same time, the separate channels are considered to be increasingly intertwined as they often contain similar functions and flows, which not only affects how information is consumed but also how the information is experienced and handled. Most researchers believe that perceived information overload is a fact among media users, but any in-depth research on these emotional experiences is limited. The purpose of the study is therefore to examine media users' experiences and perceptions of social media in an era characterized by media saturation, algorithmic control and artificial intelligence (AI). It also aims to form a deeper understanding of how they describe their experiences of presence on today's media platforms and how they reason about the media of the future based on their emotions today. This resulted in two questions: How do users describe and understand their experience of social media in an era characterized by information overload and an increased amount of AI-generated content?How do social media users imagine the digital media landscape of the future?The study is based on previous research in the area and a theoretical framework consisting of information overload in modern times, the Mediatization Theory, the Uses & Gratifications Theory and the Theory of Convergence Culture. In order to answer the two research questions, a qualitative interview study has been conducted, based on two focus group interviews with four participants in each group. Recruitment for the interviews was done using a random sample and a convenience sample. The interviews were semi- structured and stimulus material in the form of moving images was used to create further discussions. The study's results show that media users understand their media habits as partly problematic, while their use of social media continues to increase, which constitutes a paradox. In addition, users testify to a changed climate on the platforms where they describe their own role as increasingly passive to the content they are exposed to. When it comes to the future, two main beliefs emerge, which mean that there is either a return to the more traditional media society or that media technologies continue to develop in a cultivated and complex direction. The study further indicates that users exhibit a dystopian view of the development of the media where the future is rarely discussed in a positive sense.