Passing 'peak social media' in relation to Meta Platforms; Happy 32nd anniversary to my wife and me; 'Maintaining a Healthy Marriage' excerpt from my book
1) A recent article in the Financial Times raises the question of whether we've "passed peak social media"...
It caught my eye because it has implications for many stocks – especially one of my favorites, Meta Platforms (META).
It begins with this provocative sentence:
In years to come, we may well look back on September 2025 as the point at which social media jumped the shark and began rapidly accelerating its transition from the place to be seen (through a flattering Instagram filter), to a gaudy backwater of the internet inhabited by those with nothing better to do.
To support this argument, the article has a number of interesting charts...
The first shows that all age groups under age 45 have been spending less time on social media since 2022:
This one shows that there has been "a broader pernicious shift from mindful to mindless browsing":
What's the only region of the world to buck this trend?
You probably guessed it: North America. Take a look at this next chart from the FT:
To be clear, I think these trends are healthy for humanity.
I'm firmly in the camp of those who believe that spending two to three hours every day on social media is disastrous – especially for young people. (I regularly post pictures, articles, and opinions to Facebook, Instagram, and X. But I spend no more than five minutes a day scrolling through these apps.)
In fact, I think it makes sense to prohibit students from having smartphones in K-12 schools (26 states have limits or bans). Going further, I don't think that prohibiting anyone under age 18 from being on any social media is a bad idea, either. (For this, only eight states have any restrictions at all.)
Considering all this, does that dampen my bullishness for the stock of Meta Platforms?
After all, the company owns two of the biggest social media platforms – Facebook and Instagram.
Well, it's certainly something I'm keeping an eye on. But it's important as an investor not to react – or overreact – to vivid anecdotes or one data point.
The key is to focus on the metrics that matter. And on this front, there is no evidence that Meta is slowing down. Here's what I wrote in my July 31 e-mail when I covered Meta's latest earnings report:
Revenue jumped 22% year over year ("YOY"). That was driven by three main factors...
First, the number of daily active users for Meta's family of apps (which includes Facebook and Instagram), rose 6% YOY to 3.48 billion. Considering that the global population is around 8 billion, that's an incredible number.
Second, Meta fed these users a few more advertisements. "Ad impressions delivered" rose 11% YOY. That's also a big jump from the 5% gain in the first quarter.
Finally, Meta was able to charge a 9% higher average price per ad than in the same period last year.
And that's not all:
Meanwhile, costs and expenses only rose 12% YOY. That's astoundingly small growth given the strong jump in revenue.
All of this translated into phenomenal earnings-per-share ("EPS") growth of 38% to $7.14. This crushed EPS estimates of $5.88.
As long as Meta keeps posting numbers like these, it's a good idea to keep riding the stock. I'm still bullish on Meta today.
Remember, as I've said many times, you gotta let your winners run!
2) My wife Susan and I are celebrating our 32nd anniversary today!
Here's a picture of us on our wedding day and another picture from one of our recent global adventures:
Happy anniversary, Susan – I love you!
Warren Buffett once said that the most important decision you make is who you marry. As he put it: "Who you marry, which is the ultimate partnership, is enormously important in determining the happiness in your life and your success and I was lucky in that respect."
He's right. And I, too, was very lucky. But it wasn't just luck...
I chose well, and Susan and I have worked hard to maintain a strong marriage – especially through the inevitable difficult times in life.
Regarding the former...
I've previously shared (most recently on Valentine's Day) an excerpt from my book, The Art of Playing Defense, of my "12 Questions to Ask Before You Marry Someone."
But marrying the right person is only the first step.
Then, over the following decades, you need to avoid screwing up a good thing.
That's why I devoted the second half of my chapter on marriage from my book to "Maintaining a Healthy Marriage." For the first time ever, I'm publicly sharing these 31 pages, which you can read here. It begins:
When a marriage fails, it's easy to assume that it was doomed from the beginning. But my observation is that in more than half of the divorces I've seen, the couple was compatible, and their marriage started off well – let's call it an eight or more on a scale of one to 10. But then, often over a decade or more, it slowly declined to a six, then a four, then a two, then BOOM!
How did these once-happy marriages fall apart? I've studied this question carefully for many years because I really, really, really don't want it to happen to me!
Later, I continued:
Usually, when people think about a marriage falling apart, they think about something dramatic – infidelity, violence, criminal behavior, alcoholism – that suddenly ruptures the relationship.
Among the marriages I've observed that have gone bad, however, not a single one ended suddenly. Rather, they disintegrated slowly and painfully over many years.
In most cases, I don't think it was irreversible. Instead, a number of things happened that put pressure on the marriage, causing what was once an eight to slip to a six. Maybe having children or dealing with an aging parent led to stress. Or one spouse began to travel a lot for work, while the other stopped working to care for the kids, so they started living increasingly separate lives. Or they just started getting sloppy in their behavior toward each other – being short-tempered, leaving dirty laundry or dishes around, not helping out with routine childcare and chores – which let anger and resentment start to build.
This is a critical time because, while a six isn't a healthy, happy marriage, it's not a miserable, irrecoverable one either. Susan and I have fallen to this level a few times.
The key here is whether the couple a) recognizes that their marriage has fallen into the danger zone; b) communicates openly and honestly about it; and c) takes steps to address the problem(s) and get their marriage back into the healthy eight-plus range. Thankfully, we were able to do these things.
I hope my thoughts help you improve your marriage!
Best regards,
Whitney
P.S. I welcome your feedback – send me an e-mail by clicking here.