Social Media and Its Future

Once upon a time, about ten years ago, there was no such thing as social media. It was a completely different time back then No one was worried about having to check in and update statuses and tweets, uploading, editing, or liking pictures. Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram were not prevailing like they are today. As of January 2015, the average use of social media was found to spend 28% of their day on social media. 28% of the day equals out to a little over six hours (Adweek.com). I found this number shocking, especially because of how this number keeps on rising over the years. This number also boggles my mind on how social media use will be in the future. I am not only interested to see the predicted use of social media but just the future of social medias in general. We keep on advancing and evolving, I just always wonder when we are going to hit that “dead end” or if we ever will. All these questions are what lead me to research this topic for my paper and website.

The marvel of social media started back in around 2003 and 2004 when two of the most popular social medias were launched. Myspace (created by Tom Anderson) and Facebook (created by Mark Zuckerberg) were just the beginning of how social medias completely changed our world and how we communicate. A few years later, in 2005, Youtube came out and abled users to upload and share videos with people all over the world. By 2006, Twitter became available along with the new trend of “hashtagging.” Over the next few years, “Other sites like Tumblr, Spotify, Foursquare and Pinterest began popping up to fill specific social networking niches” (Smallbiztrends.com). Today there are an incredible number of social media sites. With some being more popular than others, they all serve a variety of purposes. 

Clearly the power of social media can be outstanding, depending on how it is used and because of how many people use them. To start off, there are now 7.2 billion people on the planet and of those the following numbers make interesting reading. There are just over 3 billion active Internet users (45% of the world’s internet users). Nearly 2.1 billion people have social media accounts. 3.65 billion mobile users have access to the Internet via smartphones and tablets. Close to 1.7 billion people have active social media accounts. As of 2014, we can see that social medias are so dominant because of the number of users each media has. To go even further into statistics, Facebook has about 1 billion active users. Twitter has about 560 million active users. Instagram has about 150 million active users. And Google+ has about 400 million active users. These numbers are huge and I am sure they are going to keep increasing as our generation grows up and the younger generations become as reliant on social media. One prediction I found says, “In just four years, eMarketers projects [social media usage] will nearly double by 32.7%. By then 2.44 billion of the worlds population will be on social networks” (cnbc.com). Will these are only predictions, all specialists correspond that social medias will be everywhere and very involved in our daily lives. It is hard for me to imagine social media more integrated in our lives than it already is right now but I guess we will just have to wait and see! 

A couple guesses that will come with the advanced social media are many virtual experiences and holograms. Another prediction is that the mobile and entertainment will morph. The Google glasses (a wearable social media) and the Tesla Model S (social media in your vehicle) are just the beginning of this futuristic change. Along with what the aspects of the future social media will look like, another way social media will change in the future is it becoming a required skill set. Many businesses will be looking to hire employees for social media management due to how big it is going to boom with in the next 10 years. And lastly, the visual side of social medias is of course going to continue to flourish “– the fodder of social media was traditionally words, as in status updates and tweets. However, the trend we are seeing more of now is that of visuals – for example, Twitter recently introduced photos into the feed, rather than having to click on a link, which was previously the case” (Klood.com). Although these are all just simply predictions, they are very foreseeable because of the rapid rate social media is growing at.

I am sure I am not the only one who has wondered what the future of social media will look like, and this research project was a great opportunity to look more into the topic. It is crazy to think and wonder how long and far social medias will keep advancing, but after researching I doubt they will end anytime soon. One thing is for sure; the future use of social media is going to definitely surpass the average six hours on social media a day users practice now. It is amazing to see how far social medias have come just in the past ten years. Back then, Myspace, Twitter., Facebook, or Instagram were not prevailing like they are today. It was a completely different time back then No one was worried about having to check in and update statuses and tweets, uploading, editing, or liking pictures. No matter how much time changes in the future, I highly doubt we will ever go back to a time like this.