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PoliciesAre social networks doomed?
The lifespans of leading platforms are running out – unless they can evolve.
This week, we examine the future of social networks and exactly what they might need to do to survive.
Christopher Moriarty
Creative
Trending
7 minute read
When a young Mark Zuckerberg drunkenly created a website designed to rate the relative attractiveness of Harvard’s female students, he was inadvertently laying the groundwork for the world’s central hub of misinformation and misanthropy.
The social network was once a website where we naïvely logged in to chat with friends and share pictures of our lunch and other people’s cats. Eventually, it became an addictive app that we visited several times an hour to check in on divisive political debates between partisan trolls, hot-takes and clickbait from the dying embers of media empires, and identity farming quizzes from scam sites hosted in faraway lands.
It’s a place we now want to leave but cannot, because it’s where everyone else is. For the moment.
The social network was once a website where we naïvely logged in to chat with friends and share pictures of our lunch and other people’s cats. Eventually, it became an addictive app that we visited several times an hour to check in on divisive political debates between partisan trolls, hot-takes and clickbait from the dying embers of media empires, and identity farming quizzes from scam sites hosted in faraway lands.
It’s a place we now want to leave but cannot, because it’s where everyone else is. For the moment.
In short
- Despite the desire of some to quit social media, its widespread use keeps almost everyone online.
- Platforms must rely on more than the addiction of their users to survive.
- Without change, we will re-evaluate the way we use social networks – and perhaps do away with them entirely.
As humans, we crave connection. We’re social animals. We’re comfortable pack-bonding with a distressed Roomba, as these Tumblr posts can attest.
“If the social network is to stay in the business of actually networking us through our interactions, it needs to become more useful than it is addictive.”
Speaking of Tumblr, remember Tumblr? It kind of died on the vine (much like the social video app of the same name).1
The lifespan of a social network
So how does a social network germinate, blossom into a field of poison ivy and wither away to a dustbowl filled with tumbleweeds?
Here it is in ten easy steps:
- A social media network is launched.
- People sign up and invite their friends to join.
- Everyone gathers to enjoy the unique properties of the platform. This is the fun bit.
- Larger servers are needed to maintain the ever-expanding user base.
- This often necessitates dark capital from shady firms and government agencies.
- Investors demand a return on their money, along with greater access to the personal information and habits of users.
- The feed is heavily monetised, so it becomes pay to play.
- This leads to a proliferation of intrusive advertising and a curtailing of some functionality to appease stakeholders and allow brands and sponsored posts to rank higher in the feed.
- Soon, the place begins to feel like somewhere we no longer want to be, so we post about leaving.
- Finally, we leave.
Even though the Tag Group clearly states, ‘this isn’t an airport, there’s no need to announce your departure’, we’ve all seen messages from people on our various social platforms declaring that they’re leaving (or considering leaving) said platform.
Universal heat death will one day come to Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the Metaverse as it already laid waste to Friendster, MySpace and all the chat rooms and bulletin board services that came and went before.
Entropy is inevitable. Everything dies. Even words, despite what you may have heard from Rebecca’s 3-year-old son.
Universal heat death will one day come to Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the Metaverse as it already laid waste to Friendster, MySpace and all the chat rooms and bulletin board services that came and went before.
Entropy is inevitable. Everything dies. Even words, despite what you may have heard from Rebecca’s 3-year-old son.
So what does a social network need to do to survive?
For many, the social network has become an unwelcome middleman standing between creator and audience. With endless advertising choking our newsfeeds and algorithms dictating what gets seen, the social network is no longer assisting the flow of information and content, it’s restricting it based on a set of ever-changing and arbitrary rules.
If the social network is to stay in the business of actually networking us through our interactions, it needs to become more useful than it is addictive. The ‘gamification’ of social platforms must come to an end. Turning users into addicts may work for a short while, but it’s not healthy in the long-term (just watch Dopesick on Disney+ for evidence).
Increasing the volume of advertising and offering more reach is one way to remain profitable for a time, but it generally results in more people seeing more ads with ill-fitting targeting which makes for a lousy customer experience.
If you must fill the carefully curated timeline with endless sponsored content, it should be fun, useful and necessary to users. Encourage (or demand) that brands provide good content, and it will be welcomed and shared. Quality, relevant content is always appreciated and tends to travel further than the alternative.
The algorithm already knows what things people like and how they think, so if your platform can’t use that data to provide targeted content users will like and share, then you’re just standing in the way.
If the social network is to stay in the business of actually networking us through our interactions, it needs to become more useful than it is addictive. The ‘gamification’ of social platforms must come to an end. Turning users into addicts may work for a short while, but it’s not healthy in the long-term (just watch Dopesick on Disney+ for evidence).
Increasing the volume of advertising and offering more reach is one way to remain profitable for a time, but it generally results in more people seeing more ads with ill-fitting targeting which makes for a lousy customer experience.
If you must fill the carefully curated timeline with endless sponsored content, it should be fun, useful and necessary to users. Encourage (or demand) that brands provide good content, and it will be welcomed and shared. Quality, relevant content is always appreciated and tends to travel further than the alternative.
The algorithm already knows what things people like and how they think, so if your platform can’t use that data to provide targeted content users will like and share, then you’re just standing in the way.
Is a world without the social network achievable?
How could we possibly live without broadcasting our every thought and most photogenic meals to global strangers?
The same way we did before. With smaller and more meaningful social interactions on a one-to-one basis or through group chats.
But to do this we have to first admit that we have a problem and shake our addiction to superficial validation from randoms on the internet. We need to ask ourselves whether the convenience offered by the platforms outweighs their toxicity, and the simple rewards of Likes and Reacts are worth the anxiety and stress.
The same way we did before. With smaller and more meaningful social interactions on a one-to-one basis or through group chats.
But to do this we have to first admit that we have a problem and shake our addiction to superficial validation from randoms on the internet. We need to ask ourselves whether the convenience offered by the platforms outweighs their toxicity, and the simple rewards of Likes and Reacts are worth the anxiety and stress.
Have we simply outgrown the need for the social network?
Perhaps it’s not a case of ‘What if phones, but too much?’2 rather ‘What if phones, but just enough?’.
Our current devices provide us with everything we need to share the right amount of information with the right amount of people. Messaging apps allow us to tag people in photos and create chat and video groups without having to spend extra to rise up in the feed.
We now live in the age of wearable tech, ubiquitous Wi-Fi and the Internet of Everything. If we want to connect and share, we can now do so more directly without having to trade chunks of personal information to a multibillion-dollar data mining giant. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Our current devices provide us with everything we need to share the right amount of information with the right amount of people. Messaging apps allow us to tag people in photos and create chat and video groups without having to spend extra to rise up in the feed.
We now live in the age of wearable tech, ubiquitous Wi-Fi and the Internet of Everything. If we want to connect and share, we can now do so more directly without having to trade chunks of personal information to a multibillion-dollar data mining giant. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
on going social
The success of social media has encouraged plenty of apps to incorporate social features. The problem: social isn’t a shortcut to success. Podcast app Shuffle was designed for social listening, using timestamped comments and alerts to simulate ‘live’ reactions. But with a bleak rate of growth, Shuffle shut down earlier this month.
Written by Christopher Moriarty, 52 Words and editing by Abby Clark, key visual by Laura Murphy, page built by Angelica Martin.
References
- Jennimai Nguyen, Tumblr died a slow and painful death. Here's how TikTok can avoid the same fate. (2 February 2021), Mashable
- Meg Watson, Mallory Ortberg Accidentally Inspired A New Episode Of ‘Black Mirror’ By Making Fun Of The Show (24 October 2016), Junkee
