One of the biggest debates that has been raging recently has to do with social media and the enormous impact that social networking platforms are having on the world around us. A particular source of controversy had to do with one of the original cofounders of Facebook, Chris Hughes, who claimed that Facebook had gotten too big to meet its initial goal of actually connecting people and that it should be broken up.
Many were quick to criticize Hughes, saying that breaking Facebook up would not really change anything because of the fact that some other company would just come in to fill the void, meaning that the presence of a social media monolith is something of an inevitability in our modern day and age. Criticism of Hughes’ statements also begged the question: does the world really need social media?
Social media and internet users enjoyed a decade long love affair during which countless people used various social media apps and websites for their own benefit in one way or another. However, a couple of years ago something changed. What changed was that we were exposed to the dangers of what could happen if social media platforms were left unchecked as they wielded their vast and undeniable powers.
And so, a change started to come about, one that continued throughout last year. This change has to do with a general mistrust of social media, with Facebook in particular taking a serious nosedive in terms of its popularity. While this doesn’t exactly mean all that much in the grand scheme of things since Facebook still continued to get new accounts and earn quite bit of profit, it did indicate that the golden days when people trusted Facebook blindly were long gone and that social media platforms had to stay on their toes.
However, even though Facebook has continued to earn a profit and other social networks have been performing similarly well, one thing is for sure: young people are using social media less and less often, and the reason for this is that they are starting to realize that social media doesn’t really fulfill any specific purpose in their lives apart from giving them something they can use to kill time.
A lot of this had to do with the fake culture of positivity that a lot of social media platforms, with Facebook being an especially big culprit of this, tried to spread. Teens know what their life is really life, and the fakeness that is spreading throughout social media is definitely a factor that is making it less likely that the average young person would want to use Facebook or indeed a lot of other social media platforms.
The main reason for all of this is that social media sites put profits over people. In their faux attempts to connect the world they started thinking only about money, and this is what has alienated so many people from the very concept of social media.
Photo: Tracy Le Blanc
Read next: Getting to the top in tech — A decade of Google search interests on Mark Zuckerberg
Many were quick to criticize Hughes, saying that breaking Facebook up would not really change anything because of the fact that some other company would just come in to fill the void, meaning that the presence of a social media monolith is something of an inevitability in our modern day and age. Criticism of Hughes’ statements also begged the question: does the world really need social media?
Social media and internet users enjoyed a decade long love affair during which countless people used various social media apps and websites for their own benefit in one way or another. However, a couple of years ago something changed. What changed was that we were exposed to the dangers of what could happen if social media platforms were left unchecked as they wielded their vast and undeniable powers.
And so, a change started to come about, one that continued throughout last year. This change has to do with a general mistrust of social media, with Facebook in particular taking a serious nosedive in terms of its popularity. While this doesn’t exactly mean all that much in the grand scheme of things since Facebook still continued to get new accounts and earn quite bit of profit, it did indicate that the golden days when people trusted Facebook blindly were long gone and that social media platforms had to stay on their toes.
However, even though Facebook has continued to earn a profit and other social networks have been performing similarly well, one thing is for sure: young people are using social media less and less often, and the reason for this is that they are starting to realize that social media doesn’t really fulfill any specific purpose in their lives apart from giving them something they can use to kill time.
A lot of this had to do with the fake culture of positivity that a lot of social media platforms, with Facebook being an especially big culprit of this, tried to spread. Teens know what their life is really life, and the fakeness that is spreading throughout social media is definitely a factor that is making it less likely that the average young person would want to use Facebook or indeed a lot of other social media platforms.
The main reason for all of this is that social media sites put profits over people. In their faux attempts to connect the world they started thinking only about money, and this is what has alienated so many people from the very concept of social media.
Photo: Tracy Le Blanc
Read next: Getting to the top in tech — A decade of Google search interests on Mark Zuckerberg
