Who can predict the future of social media?
Social Media is extremely popular across a wide range of demographics with users sharing photographs, thoughts and feelings, and simply socialising online with friends and family. Over the last few years, social media has grown in popularity immensely. We have seen the launch of numerous social media networks, including many with specific target audiences and purposes. A few of the most popular networks include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pintrest and Google+, and they are only a select few.
But what is the future of social media? Well, lots of people have different views, expectations and opinions as to what will happen. Technologies like virtual reality may very well be widely accessible or microchips implanted under the skin could be a possibility. But what would the ever-expanding world of social media look like? Well, a woman named Gina Lednyak was involved in the first ever test group of Facebook and she has a few predictions.
Facebook will still stay as popular as ever. This is due to the cleverness of Zuckerberg, the creator. He keeps up with the consumers’ wants and needs. With their ever-evolving habits and interests, Facebook ensures that every one of their ‘wants’ are accessible leading people to stay online. Facebook will transition into an even bigger social media giant! And we thought it was big enough already.
Social networking will intertwine with virtual reality. This will be bigger than our already available wearable technology. Big products such as helmets with built in navigation systems, technology for your pets and even ‘smart buttons’ that could change your clothing colour may be available. Zuckerberg has shown a real interest in virtual reality by stating that virtual reality is “the platform for tomorrow.” It’s going to be interesting what he will come up with.
Most likely, all of Generation Y will be famous for around 15 seconds. They will all be one viral video away from it; from YouTube stars to the ‘Vine’ video (6 second videos of the most random situations) sensations. Society’s attention spans continue to shrink causing the popularity of short videos to grow extensively. These days everyone wants their piece of fame.
Social media will continue to reduce the average amount of face-to-face contact; especially within the dating world. Mobile/online dating will rise and social chance meetings will fall. Like I mentioned before, society’s attention span is shrinking, so, we would much rather find out about a person straight away by reading their ‘profiles’ and instantly chatting with efficiency to see if we are interested rather than meeting for a coffee in a few days’ time.
This is only one persons’ thoughts as to what the future will entail. But after some research, I have come up with a few common predictions.
There will be a significant increase in the amount of data that will be available to the masses, wearable technology will become more popular including watches and glasses to access social media causing tablets and computers to slowly become a thing of the past (but will they disappear altogether?). Your social networking stream will become a lot more personalised, only showing what you are interested in (more so than it does now). Marketing and advertising companies will jump on this bandwagon (again, even more than they do now). For example, you upload a picture of your favourite coffee, the next day, you could be offered a discount on that coffee!
But, these are only guesses, and predictions. Who really knows what the future will hold! Do you have any predictions? Comment below!
