Evolution of Social Media

Earlier this week I saw a tweet about a new social media app. It focuses on using AI edited images of a user into fantasy scenarios or whatever they want really and it got me thinking about how much social media has changed over time. Now disclaimer: this might be my most boomer take as a gen Z individual.

I was on Facebook around the time I moved to public school from private school and back then, my timeline was only ever people I knew in real life or wanted to. But eventually, it became filled with people I didn’t know or who were tangential friends to even those I barely knew myself whether that be a classmate or someone I went to summer camp with years prior. It became a competition to have the most likes on statuses or how many friends you had in comparison to others.

If you are a regular user of the various social media platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter (X), or Facebook, you probable have come across advertisements or reels, shorts, whatever the platform you’re using calls them, about side hustles or the “grindset mindset”. Now, side hustles can be great and this post isn’t to deter people from pursuing them. In fact, if they are in need of or wanting extra income, a side hustle is a good way to do it. This is especially the case due to inflation and how much basic necessities cost these days. But half of my daily content consumption these days is overwhelmed by these type of videos and content and it is not by choice. Specifically those who want to monetize their platforms and who pay to have their content be pushed to the top of users feeds it minimizes the content I am actually interested in seeing most the time. Everyone wants to get rich quick or make significant passive income with little to no effort (this also isn’t a “no one wants to work anymore” post either - just fyi). There are tons of these “influencer” or influencer wannabe types that are promoting Amazon products or things they get for free to promote and in my opinion is contentiously contributing, knowingly or not, to the spread of misinformation.

As a gen Z, a lover of pop culture/wellness/fashion, and security and privacy - the amount of information we’re sharing on an everyday basis is too damn high (MEME). Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing new products, but with thousands of fake or AI generated reviews, I have seen so many people get scammed out of what money they do have for some product that a celebrity or influencer they follow has promoted. This is including but not limited to: skincare, health supplements, clothing, hair care items, accessories, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, etc. So few people seem to have the knowledge of how to even figure out if what they’re looking at is real or not. It doesn’t even need an advanced technological background in order to determine if an image is AI, or photoshopped, if a website is legitimate, or even if its just a troll commenting on photos and videos of a user.

Social media companies are in this constant growth model, to have the most number of users registered and continuously using their product everyday. Each company takes the most favorable aspects of other popular platforms and tries to poorly implement it into their own platform. The most prevalent example is TikTok - formerly Musical.ly. TikTok has its own issues with how the data is handled with their platform and has even had debates on whether or not it should be banned in the US because of it (LINK) - that’s a discussion for another post. TikTok is massively popular amongst the younger generations and its clear to see why. More often than not these days, many articles contain links to TikTok videos sharing their experience with a particular interaction, location, store, restaurant, or other individual. Other platforms such as Facebook (Meta), Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube have seen the popularity with this model of short videos and decided to make their own variation of it. But by trying to adopt the next big thing, they all are slowly making their initial value and appeal diminish. There is no individual appeal anymore for most of these applications because they all want to be the one application everyone uses for everything instead of sticking to what they are good at or what their initial intended purpose was. And honestly, as a consumer, that straight up sucks. It becomes almost impossible as a regular (non influencer) user to keep a solid presence on all of these platforms because of how much and what types of content you need to post just to show up in a feed, which I also believe contributes to the oversharing necessary to stay “relevant”.

DISCLAIMER: BOOMER TAKE AHEAD

I miss the “good old days” where I could just interact with my friends and hear their thoughts and opinions about things going on in their life. I even miss the slight sense of jealousy I got only a few years ago, when it felt like all my friends were getting engaged, buying homes, or starting families while I was finishing up my degree. I miss getting to see the accomplishments of my peers, colleagues, classmates, and to be entirely honest - their parents, regardless of how small and insignificant they may seem. Social media was all about sharing things you’re proud of and want to share with your followers and follow the things YOU wanted to see, not advertisements, scams, and paid promotional content, every other post. Now the shift has been quite noticeable, the people I know who are doing well and making great strides for themselves in their personal lives and careers - don’t post about it because they don’t feel its “enough”. And the people who just want to promote stuff are filling timelines with posts that are insignificant, unrelatable, and unobtainable at the rate they’re occurring. But what is “enough” to warrant a post anymore? It is entirely subjective, but it always has been, just now, everyone seems to be following the pattern of what is popular and what gets the most engagement and unfortunately its not things like getting a promotion at your job, or gaining new skills for a hobby, or graduating with a degree from higher education, it’s not even just being proud of something regardless of the reason. I just find it so discouraging and sad.