Where is the social in social media lately?

I have been active on social media sites especially Twitter for about 2 ½ yrs and I have to say it has really changed in that time frame and not necessarily for the better.  When I first started, I meet people; had conversations; found interesting news sites; podcasts and blogs to read that I never would have discovered on my own. Most of my business contacts were found and nurtured online. Then the big push came that businesses have to market on social media.  Gone was the only 80/20 rule (80% engagement and 20% self promotion).  My streams on Twitter and later Facebook were no longer engaging conversations.  They now tend to be comprised of 3 types of posts: cheerleading for the latest wonderful selling venue or product,  complaining about a least favorite venue or the government and post after post of items for sale.  Do people not know how to be social anymore?  How to engage in real conversation beside the government or eBay or this place or that place stink?  I don’t need to know what you had for breakfast, but I would love to know what new things you learned that day or why it is a great time to be alive.
 
I have to say I really miss the old days, l when I could spend time off and on over the course of the day meeting new people and learning new things. Social media started out as a great place to meet people from all over the world. Now it has turned into late night television full of advertising.  I have high hopes that the next social media site will learn from the mistakes of others or I will have to learn to be much more selective in who I follow. I would just hate to do that knowing how many great people I will probably miss out on meeting.
 
 
Try to put the social back in your social media activities. Sure a soapbox is fine once and a while and the occasional cool thing you found, but the key is to engage people in conversation, so they want to get to know you and talk to you more. Not block you and mark you as spam.