Screen Suspicion + Social Media's Trust Crisis
How brands can withstand a less believable social media.
[Pick up phone. Open social feed]
Oh! I didn’t know they had a baby. Adorable!
[Swipe.]
Ooh, a new Snoop Dogg track!
…about World War II? And what’s going on with his fingers?
[Swipe.]
Wait–I had no idea the Hollywood sign was on fire. How did I not hear about this?
[Swipe.]
The outdoors are…bad, actually? Anti-Outdoors awareness? Indoor supremacy? Who would possibly think that?
[Swipe.]
Ad.
Feel familiar?
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At Neuemotion, the effectiveness of social video as both a creative canvas and a critical asset for brands is one of our core beliefs. That passion—along with the occasional backing of legit neuroscience—is what’s led us to rip packs, win awards, and make a difference with some of the biggest brands in the world.
But our connectedness to that science (and our self-diagnosed, terminal online-ness) is also what keeps us tuned-in as the times change for social video.
And, oh boy, are the times a-changin’...
While generative AI has raised the sea level of social video, it’s done so like an oil spill. The majority of what flows into our feeds is still “all-natural”, conceived directly from the minds and hands of users, creators, and even brands alike. But an increasing percentage is not, instead made up of generated content that’s artificial, harmful, and–in our opinion–uncanny.
To get a deeper understanding, we examined what happens when we doubt what we see on our screens–how it changes user behavior, how it impacts social video specifically, and what brands need to do to adapt.
Screen suspicion
A trend that we’re tracking at Neuemotion is the idea that we’re all slowly becoming more and more screen suspicious. Let’s set ourselves up with a quick definition:
screen suspicious (adj.): feeling doubt about the honesty, intention, and/or verifiability of something displayed to you on a screen
As technology advances, so too does the fidelity of the fibs that social media can fling. Social video, in particular, is susceptible to accelerating falsehoods because it’s where our traditional verifiers are eroding the fastest.
Just in the past few years alone, we’ve gone from reliably counting fingers to intensely studying how well simulated speech tracks to generated lips. And now, it seems like all we have left is…debating physics?
However, while improvements in generative AI have extended the lifespan of its own generations, it also makes trust more easily broken. Once a user has felt deceived, they join the ranks of the finger-counters, speech-trackers, and physics experts, closely evaluating everything they see from then on to avoid being the worst thing you can be on the internet: wrong.
And while all of this is in an effort to “game the game” of social media, it’s not just AI that’s doing it. Hyperoptimization of social media by its users, often in aggressive response to the constantly shifting algorithms of platforms, perpetuates trends like ragebait, clipping campaigns, and more. These tactics, essentially platform “hacks,” often rely on sleuths in the comment sections for labeling, unlike what many platforms are doing for AI generations (to mixed results).
We see three drivers of screen suspicion:
Distrust: Negativity bias, or how we tend to weigh negative experiences more heavily than positive ones, is as true on social media as it is in real life. So no matter how many times a follower has liked status or shared a post, a wrong move can still cost their trust—and the greater a fan you have, the steeper and more severe the drop is if they ever feel deceived.
Performativity: As social media grew from an online wilderness to a popularity and income engine for both users and brands, posting itself became a measurable performance. Identity signaling, ragebait, astroturfing, and breadcrumbing are some of the classic tactics, while even attempts at genuineness have a hard time shaking the feeling of ulterior motives.
Exhaustion: The reality is that we, collectively, are having a tough time recovering from what feels like a decade of “doomscrolling”. And if you look at the future of social media through its future users, Gen Z, you’ll find many that are feeling the brunt of it, turning away, and even calling for government-imposed bans.
But to tie back into the reasons that likely brought you here, what does all of this mean for the future of social content?
Social media’s trust crisis
As users slip further and further into screen suspicion, brands need to reevaluate how they can “prove” themselves on social, which they’ve historically done in four ways:
Social Trust Shortcuts:
Metrics: Views, likes, shares, comments, and more tell brands what was working (and hopefully why).
But now: Even if your brand isn’t doing it, paid engagement, algorithm amplification, and bots in general are clouding competition.
Testimonials: Endorsements by celebrities and influencers, or even just glowing reviews, signal to prospective customers that “either someone I like or someone like me trusts this”.
But now: Deceits like review boosting/bombing and AI influencers are flooding the zone with inflated indicators of quality–not to mention sponsorship fatigue in general.
Visuals: The defined aesthetics of a brand draws the line of what’s official and what’s not.
But now: Generative AI and lagging IP law is mixing messages (sometimes, confusingly, for the better), which can make for strange feedfellows…
Voice: A brand’s personality defines the tenor of its relationship with its customers, as well as being an opportunity to differentiate from a category.
But now: The “sound more human” revolution has, ironically, been supplanted by LLMs that, at worst, “sound more AI” and, at best, sound the same as everyone else.
But these aren’t just impacts happening to brand guidance and post success; they’re also changes to social media as a lens through which users might see your brand. Audiences are adapting, so prepare to hear more of the following:
“I don’t believe you.”
In a study by Deloitte, 70% of respondents said that AI-generated content makes it harder for them to trust what they see online, and that 68% fear that AI-generated content could be used to deceive or scam them. Increasingly, social media users are turning into cynics, looking for deceits and calling them out whether they’re right or wrong.
“I need proof.”
Accenture found in 2025 that 62% of consumers now say trust is an important factor when choosing to engage with a brand, up from 56% in 2023. In other words, it’s only becoming more important that a brand stays true to itself, even if and when users start to skeptically dig around its foundations.
“I don’t want to find out.”
Everything we’ve talked about so far has made the internet a more ambiguous place, and when humans encounter ambiguous situations, they actually “tend to treat them two times as bad as risky situations”. Historically, users have signed up for the risks of the internet just by logging on, but they’re now encountering something scarier–ambiguity–and it’s making them disengage.
So, if social content’s foundation is shuffling and its users are questioning, pointing fingers, and disengaging, how can brands take the opportunity to reestablish trust and connection with their customers?
What it means for brands
Screen suspicion is a seismic behavioral shift that’s affecting social media’s entire user base at once. Users are becoming more skeptical, more discerning, and more demanding of proof–and if all of those instincts fail, they’re disengaging altogether.
And while it’s become much easier to manufacture the appearance of authenticity, this makes it much harder to actually have it.
While this all may make us sound like the ‘Bad Brand News Bears’, we promise: this is an opportunity.
The brands best positioned for the other side of screen suspicion won’t be the loudest, the most viral, or even the most creative. They’ll be the ones with the most amount of “real” to point to: real people, real expertise, real communities, real experiences, and real reasons for believing.
And this isn’t just a warning for consumer brands. While both B2C and B2B companies sell products and services, trust is an especially critical asset (and the “ultimate currency”) for B2B brands. And if we’re entering an environment where audiences increasingly question what they see online, trust becomes even harder to build.
4 ways brands can combat screen suspicion
For brands navigating newly-discerning audiences, here are four ways we’re thinking about the future:
Highlight the ‘how’: Anything incredible on the internet requires an explanation. But if you highlight the how, you’ll beat any skeptics to the punch of having to search for it. Social videos that take effort to produce should maximize additional content opportunities that explain that effort, like peeks behind-the-scenes. And this shouldn’t just be a retrospective effort; it’s time to start thinking of content opportunities that deserve the effort of explanation.
Build up your ‘who’: Part of the dissonance that users are experiencing with influencer and celebrity endorsements is that they can sometimes feel like the endorsers are “coming down” to the brand’s level more than the brand is “rising up” to meet theirs. And, in the worst case scenario, being endorsed by an accused sell-out drags everyone down. Instead, brands should consider using more “homegrown” talent, like employees or customers, where possible. Trust us, sometimes a lack of acting ability is both more endearing and more likely to go viral than the inverse.
Reconsider ‘where’: ‘Changing up your environment’ is good practice for almost anything in life, but it takes on a few new meanings for social video. Now is the time to evaluate your tendencies and attempt, with authenticity, new tactics, like creating more content in your offices if you’re leaning too heavy on graphics. But, most of all, the age of screen suspicion is driving more users to seek in-person experiences, so find ways to get in the field, create experiential moments, and capture content to capitalize on it.
Wonder ‘why’: The greatest sentence a brand can hear is “More and more brands are doing this.” It’s a green light to go the opposite direction. Generative AI is pulling brands who use it irresponsibly to a messy, middle space. If your current brand has you sounding too much like your competitors or, worse, the latest LLM, it’s time to think differently. Consider the reasons, the rules, or the best practices you’re following now, then think if your competitors are all just following the same playbook.
If you work (or even just exist…) on social, you’re probably no stranger to hearing how things change. And, in the vast majority of cases, those changes are good–better features, better accessibility, better safety, etc.
But a tectonic shift is happening right now, one where non-insignificant segments of social media’s user base are backsliding away from platforms. Screen suspicion is a primary reason why.
A more screen-suspicious audience will raise the bar for all brands on social media. And while a higher bar means a higher mountain to climb, it also means a much more valuable space once you’re there.
If you’re wondering how to reach it, reach out.