I Wrote Posts with AI for 3 Months and Deleted 87 of Them: AI is Diminishing Your Social Value

#ai

Last month, I used AI to craft 23 posts for my social media. 📱

I ended up deleting 21 of them.

The remaining 2 posts? They barely got 10 likes combined. Talk about a lackluster performance.

At first, I thought that having a powerful tool like GPT-4o would make writing posts a breeze. Just input a picture description, hit generate, copy and paste—done in three minutes. The efficiency was off the charts.

But when I looked at what I posted, I didn’t even want to engage with it. ❌

It felt strange—perfect grammar, precise word choice, even some parallelism and rhyme. Yet, it didn’t feel human. What can I compare it to? 🤖 Like those lifeless mannequins in a store, dressed to the nines but with empty stares.

I realized something important: AI was helping me “speak,” but not “express.”

What is social media? It’s like your living room. When friends come over, they want to hear your genuine feelings, not your recited speech. Using AI to generate a fancy post is like placing a tape recorder in your living room, playing back standard Mandarin on loop. Your guests won’t stick around.

So, I ran an experiment.

I used the same AI-generated cyberpunk city image and asked GPT-4o to write the caption. It came up with:

“Under the night sky, a futuristic city glimmers with neon lights, brimming with technological allure.”

Then I wrote my own:

“This image reminds me of last year in Huaqiangbei, Shenzhen, at 2 AM, where the streets were filled with shops fixing phones. At that moment, I felt like this was China’s cyberpunk—not science fiction, but survival.”

I posted both.

The AI version: 3 likes, 0 comments.

My version: 47 likes, 12 comments. People asked, “What’s Huaqiangbei like now?” Others shared similar experiences, and discussions about “Chinese cyberpunk” began.

What’s the difference?

AI was “describing the scene,” while I was “sharing an experience.” AI was saying, “What is this?” I was saying, “What does this mean to me?”

That’s the biggest pitfall.

Many think using AI to write posts is a way to boost productivity. Wrong. It’s giving up your voice.
You’re outsourcing the core feelings of “Why share this image?” and “What does this image mean to me?” to an emotionless machine.

As a result, your posts become increasingly polished but devoid of humanity.

Even scarier, this “machine-like tone” can rub off on you. Gradually, you get so used to AI’s flat expressions that your own writing starts to reflect that style. I have a friend who works in private domains; after a month of using AI for his posts, he even began chatting with clients using phrases like “firstly, secondly, finally.” A client directly asked him, “Did you change? You don't sound like yourself.”

Seriously, don’t laugh.

This is the alienation of tools. You use them to enhance efficiency, but they end up reshaping your way of expression.

So what now? Should we stop using AI?

No, but let’s change how we use it.

I now treat AI as a “draft generator + vocabulary bank.” For example, if I want to post that Ghibli-style landscape, I first run it through my mind: this image reminds me of the pure joy I felt watching “My Neighbor Totoro” as a child.

Then I give AI a prompt: “Help me express ‘this image brings back the pure joy of watching Miyazaki’s animations as a kid’ in a casual way, avoiding vague words like ‘beautiful’ or ‘healing,’ and adding a bit of personal detail.”

AI gives me a few versions, I pick the one that resonates most with my voice, and then I make significant edits.

How do I edit?

I add my own flair. I insert pauses. I include inside jokes only I understand.

I change “delightful” to “absolutely amazing.” I tweak “provokes thought” to “I was just stunned at that moment.”

What I ended up posting was:

“Seeing this image automatically plays the ‘My Neighbor Totoro’ theme song in my head. I remember being in third grade, watching a pirated VCD at a classmate’s house, the picture quality was a complete mess, but I couldn’t stop grinning. That kind of joy is something you just can’t buy back today.”

Now that sounds human.

Tools will always evolve, but that genuine connection between people isn’t built on algorithms; it’s rooted in empathy.

The value of your social media isn’t about being “correct,” but about being “you.”

So here’s my simple advice: it’s okay to use AI for generating content, but before you hit send, make sure to “humanize” it.

Add your quirks, your stories, and your real emotions in that moment. Even a simple line like “I had too much coffee today, feeling a bit buzzed” can make a difference.

Because nobody wants to be friends with a perfect AI.

What everyone seeks is that flawed, warm, and sometimes silly real person.

Use the time you save to truly experience life.

Remember, AI can help you write captions, but it can’t live your life for you.