At their humble begining, apps like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, were all once just photo sharing and text messaging apps, but now, their utilization has developed into something more.
The rise of the use of social media over the years and its future
The rise of the use of social media over the years and its future
Social media has been an important element in society’s development over the last two decades. While a lot of praise can be credited to these digital platforms, and their relevance to social, cultural and political advancement, certain criticisms of social media remain valid as we speak today. However, every day, knowledgeable individuals continue to call out these crude and backwards models that still manage to thrive across the timelines; Whether it is regarding beauty, lifestyle, fashion, or politics,
It is 2022, and everyone is conscious about what they create and consume, in direction with an agenda or another, whether they realize it or not. Nevertheless, this construct was a ripple effect of a famous movement back in 2018 themed as “Make Instagram casual again”. This was after Instagram shifted from an app that centred on capturing casual moments in people’s lives in the mid-2010s to becoming a hub for aesthetic pleasing grids, and a $13.8billion pot for a booming influencer market as of 2021. To maintain balance within its user community, and limit the impacts of influencer culture, certain adjustments had to be carried out. For example, Instagram took down the visibility of the number of likes, YouTube removed the visibility of the dislike count and other changes that would make it easy so the apps could still seem more casual for a certain demographic of internet users who preferred it so for certain reasons.
Yet, despite the adjustments made by these platforms, it seems very much unlikely that we will ever return to that era in which what most users wanted to do was send a text, or share a moment with their minimal sum of followers.
Back in the early 2010s, Social media used to be relaxed, but this is 2022. The fast-paced development has led to the detraction of this casual construct, revamped social media which have become basically important to collective existence especially considering the huge financial potential for authors is on the rise. Everybody wants a slice of the cake. Most users creating a new Instagram, TikTok, or Twitter account, do so to create recognition for their businesses, activism on socio-political issues such as racial prejudice, climate change, pride, mental health and more. Other authors take to social media just for the liberty to express themselves, their talent in a desire to make it in the music or film industries. And there is another set of users who use social media as a means to get away from reality.
At their humble beginning, apps like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, were all once just photo sharing and text messaging apps, but now, the use of these apps has developed into so much more.
At the long run? Will it be for the greater good? Time will tell.