To be honest, I check my devwatch like once a month because with finishing my degree and work I don't have time to keep up with social media (as much as I'd love to). I even upload just one or two artworks per month to my own gallery, which is pitiful number. But I understand what you're talking about. I have 4400+ watchers and when I take the time to check who's faving my newest upload, about less than 10% are my watchers, the rest are random people who found me on front page. I have few "regulars" and I admire them greatly because I'm such a hard person to get in contact with.
It may be that most people you used to interact grew up, went to college/work or have kids now and don't have time for DA anymore?
Also, I think that regular (but not too regular) uploads keep people engaged. If an account looks dead, people often stop caring. But that's not your case because you post journals quite often. So I dunno what's going on. I've been talking about this with my friend who was gushing about my number of watchers and I told him that it's a big number of dead souls. I've noticed that even Princess-of-shadows who has almost 30 thousand watchers gets barely 100 faves on her newest artworks (but then again she left and came back to DA many times so maybe people just got fed up with her antics).
Maybe art today is more about consumption than actually connecting with other artists - people come to DA to find pretty pictures, fav and run and they socialize on Facebook. Might as well be that Facebook destroyed DA as community.
It may be that most people you used to interact grew up, went to college/work or have kids now and don't have time for DA anymore?
Also, I think that regular (but not too regular) uploads keep people engaged. If an account looks dead, people often stop caring. But that's not your case because you post journals quite often. So I dunno what's going on. I've been talking about this with my friend who was gushing about my number of watchers and I told him that it's a big number of dead souls. I've noticed that even Princess-of-shadows who has almost 30 thousand watchers gets barely 100 faves on her newest artworks (but then again she left and came back to DA many times so maybe people just got fed up with her antics).
Maybe art today is more about consumption than actually connecting with other artists - people come to DA to find pretty pictures, fav and run and they socialize on Facebook. Might as well be that Facebook destroyed DA as community.
I said this in another comment:
"I felt sad because yesterday i took a random look at how many watchers i have and wow, at 2774 i would expect more people would interact with me, be it a llama, a fave, a comment or a note (from time to time, not on a daily basis, i'm not absurd). But there's only a handful of regulars and there are also other deviants who pop in from time to time but all in all probably only 100 people actually watch me
Or let's be positive and say 200, but that's it. There's a big gap between 200 and 2774 
I wonder if there's anything i could do to spark up their interest and if there is, please let me know 
"
Problem is, two years ago, i had double the activity i receive now. I also thought about what you said and it makes sense, but, you know, it's still discouraging.
"I felt sad because yesterday i took a random look at how many watchers i have and wow, at 2774 i would expect more people would interact with me, be it a llama, a fave, a comment or a note (from time to time, not on a daily basis, i'm not absurd). But there's only a handful of regulars and there are also other deviants who pop in from time to time but all in all probably only 100 people actually watch me
Or let's be positive and say 200, but that's it. There's a big gap between 200 and 2774 I wonder if there's anything i could do to spark up their interest and if there is, please let me know "Problem is, two years ago, i had double the activity i receive now. I also thought about what you said and it makes sense, but, you know, it's still discouraging.
Yeah, it is discouraging. I'm trying to figure out how to engage my audience a bit more. Each medium is unique, so I'm not sure whether, for example, a "youtuber" strategy is viable on DA as well. It seems to me that youtubers engage their audience by sharing a lot about themselves and their life - their personality is as much attractive as the content they create. So maybe that can be a way how to get people more involved in, make them feel like they know you - if they know and care about you, they'll care about your art as well. At leas that seems to be the way it works on youtube, I really don't know if this can work around here as well.
It might work as well, but here the key is to be active and upload regularly, engage in community projects, comment, fave etc so you can get yourself known and other will want to visit your profile. You can share your work on the forum forum.deviantart.com/premium/t… forum.deviantart.com/showcase/… 