How far do y'all think social media will go?

[cynthiune]

You're overlooking another possibility.
One I find a little more compelling with each passing year:
Maybe the boomers were right.

I'm really counting on this possibility. In an alternate future, the general population gets absolutely fed up with social media and begins dropping it en mass. I can't even begin to imagine what that would look like and how companies would re-adjust.

 

[solariat]

I know this is random but I am just inquiring on how far y'all think social media will go?

In my opinion I feel it will always be here... however some apps may get "played out" or get old over time but it's in our human nature to want to connect with others so i don't think social media will technically "go anywhere".

I am however tired of the fabrication of peoples perfect lives on the internet though. I feel a lot of people just do that for attention though.

Everyone seems to always act and think the same on the internet.

I genuinely believe that social media is now solely used as a tool for crowd control, and mass manipulation. The evidence for such is overwhelming. The way which data can be manipulated and the perception of reality shifted. Even now, on this forum, i have no real way of knowing if any of you are real or not. I operate on the assumption that many of you are, whether or not you are feds, or some advertising intern trying to learn more about subcultres is another thing entirely. Thats the real issue I see, that the surface level internet like social media, is consistently manipulated and fed ideas which are perpetuated by bots, troll farms, real people using fake accounts to spread misinfo or even just to shill their products. its not about right v left. that entire politicization of the internet is also intentional. memes that are created by mis-info agents to spread paranoia and distrust of anyone who doesnt agree with you wholeheartedly. it is pure insanity. I want to copy and paste this from wiki talking about the key ideas behind baudrillards simulcura and simulation. which i think echoes alot of the ideas we have about mistrusting social media, the internet and why the idea of "dead internet theory" seems very accurate. because simply put, it is simulated reality. there is plenty of evidence showing how much these companies put into generating fake content in order to make it seem like the internet is more full of life than it actually is.

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Simulacra and Simulation delineates the sign-order into four stages:

1. The first stage is a faithful image/copy, where we believe, and it may even be correct, that a sign is a "reflection of a profound reality" (pg 6), this is a good appearance, in what Baudrillard called "the sacramental order".
2. The second stage is perversion of reality, this is where we come to believe the sign to be an unfaithful copy, which "masks and denatures" reality as an "evil appearance—it is of the order of maleficence". Here, signs and images do not faithfully reveal reality to us, but can hint at the existence of an obscure reality which the sign itself is incapable of encapsulating.
3. The third stage masks the absence of a profound reality, where the sign pretends to be a faithful copy, but it is a copy with no original. Signs and images claim to represent something real, but no representation is taking place and arbitrary images are merely suggested as things which they have no relationship to. Baudrillard calls this the "order of sorcery", a regime of semantic algebra where all human meaning is conjured artificially to appear as a reference to the (increasingly) hermetic truth.
4. The fourth stage is pure simulacrum, in which the simulacrum has no relationship to any reality whatsoever. Here, signs merely reflect other signs and any claim to reality on the part of images or signs is only of the order of other such claims. This is a regime of total equivalency, where cultural products need no longer even pretend to be real in a naïve sense, because the experiences of consumers' lives are so predominantly artificial that even claims to reality are expected to be phrased in artificial, "hyperreal" terms. Any naïve pretension to reality as such is perceived as bereft of critical self-awareness, and thus as oversentimental.

Degrees​

Simulacra and Simulation identifies three types of simulacra and identifies each with a historical period:

1. First order, associated with the premodern period, where representation is clearly an artificial placemarker for the real item. The uniqueness of objects and situations marks them as irreproducibly real and signification obviously gropes towards this reality.
2. Second order, associated with the modernity of the Industrial Revolution, where distinctions between representation and reality break down due to the proliferation of mass-reproducible copies of items, turning them into commodities. The commodity's ability to imitate reality threatens to replace the authority of the original version, because the copy is just as "real" as its prototype.
3. Third order, associated with the postmodernity of Late Capitalism, where the simulacrum precedes the original and the distinction between reality and representation vanishes. There is only the simulation, and originality becomes a totally meaningless concept.[9]

Phenomena​

Baudrillard theorizes that the lack of distinctions between reality and simulacra originates in several phenomena:[10]

1. Contemporary media including television, film, print, and the Internet, which are responsible for blurring the line between products that are needed (in order to live a life) and products for which a need is created by commercial images.
2. Exchange value, in which the value of goods is based on money (literally denominated fiat currency) rather than usefulness, and moreover usefulness comes to be quantified and defined in monetary terms in order to assist exchange.
3. Multinational capitalism, which separates produced goods from the plants, minerals and other original materials and the processes (including the people and their cultural context) used to create them.
4. Urbanization, which separates humans from the nonhuman world, and re-centres culture around productive throughput systems so large they cause alienation.
5. Language and ideology, in which language increasingly becomes caught up in the production of power relations between social groups, especially when powerful groups institute themselves at least partly in monetary terms.

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I think that this general idea makes alot of sense when applied to internet especially. it is clear to us how there is an old internet, and a current internet. They are very different things

 

[Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意]

Our graphic design teacher forced us to use Instagram to upload our homeworks, i think social media would become more and more mandatory with the time, which i really dissaproved, but there is nothing else i can do, just survive and get used to a new world, as i have done the previous years, times move forward and nothing changes.

You should tell your teacher that its against your religion to use Instagram. Though, I don't know if that excuse works in S.America. Instagram to upload homework? What is this weathered, dystopian hell we live in...

 

[Chao Tse-Tung]

Completely honestly, I feel like we're staring at social-media-endgame right now. Mass, nearly monopolized interaction that's all been directed expressly the way that said near-monopoly wants. From here, either the addiction ramps up, or the whole thing crashes.

Overall, I see the VR/AR standpoint, but until it seems as viable for everyone to own a good headset (which with the way we overuse electronic components, that point may never be reached), I don't think that sort of thing be much more than a gimmick at most, or a playground for rich kids at least.

I think that the whole thing is dreadfully more boring than everyone hoped it would be. "Not with a bang, but a whimper," as foretold, will ring true, I'd say.

 

[Mеченый Яков]

You should tell your teacher that its against your religion to use Instagram. Though, I don't know if that excuse works in S.America. Instagram to upload homework? What is this weathered, dystopian hell we live in...

I don't have a religion, but i can say i'm a taoist and we don't believe in internet or some shit like that lol, also central america is in the "North american" region of the continent (i don't know about you, but in latin america, the whole american continent is tought as one single continent, unlike USA in which the north and south regions of the continent are separated continents for some reason lol)

And yeah, i can understand why, it's graphic design after all, but i really despise the idea of being forced to use social media i dislike in the first place, i deleted my instagram shortly after i finished the semester, lol.

 

[ThyOde17]

it all depends on what gen alpha does, considering their more internet addicted then gen z I think things will only get worse

Gen alpha is going to have profound mental disabilities once they are in their late adolescence. A good number of millennial and late gen x parents "raising" them have no issues putting them in front of a computer or tablet and let them have a level of freedom on the internet that no child should have at any period in their upbringing. It is really sad to see this, and I hope to God they somehow see the errors in this.

 

[Crewza]

I belive the society will go full digital eventually

 

[harriet2020]

TOO FUCKING FAR THATS FOR DAMN SURE. FUCK SOCIAL MEDIA

 

[harriet2020]

Our graphic design teacher forced us to use Instagram to upload our homeworks, i think social media would become more and more mandatory with the time, which i really dissaproved, but there is nothing else i can do, just survive and get used to a new world, as i have done the previous years, times move forward and nothing changes.

your graphic design teacher needs to learn how to use Email, or Gdrive, or anything but fucking instagram

 

[consonant]

Are we exactly like the boomers who talked down to us and blamed us for the social decline we were experiencing? Are we just too egotistical to realize that we are becoming/have become the very thing we hated and tried so hard to avoid becoming?

right now my opinion is that it's a combination of growing older and the internet kind of getting worse at the same time.
honestly maybe this is just how growing up in a place with capitalism is; you're going to first interact with products that are made to appeal to a niche, they blow up, and now the people who made the product make so much money they don't need to care about their audience anymore.

 

[Stinkfist]

it's already gone too far

 

[lingo]

its gone as far as into my corneas which is too far

 

[Chen]

We're approaching what might be the tip of the start of the very slow death of facebook itself, I think. With various scandals and Zuck being on different trials maybe the public realizes something stinks. Does this mean anything in the long run or will it be replaced by something else? is it even possible to kill it? who knows.

People are far too addicted at this point.

 

[MorphedSnowman]

People are far too addicted at this point.

Honestly I kinda don't believe this is true anymore. Like obviously everyone will check their phone if it just rings a tiny bit, but I feel people seriously feel alone nowdays and would actually enjoy something really social instead of scrolling some sterile feed. I know I do. I don't expect a miracle, but maybe we can go to something where you truly feel connected with someone.

 

[Pangolin]

Oh, trust me, I do consider that possibility. So much so that sometimes I sound like Optimus Boomer. What if computers were a mistake? What if planes were a mistake? What if cars were a mistake? What if electricity was a mistake? What if the only feasible way for humans to live on this planet successfully and freely is by foraging and hunting like every other animal?

Maybe the Boomers were right. Maybe they weren't. I think we are the generations right now who will decide that answer.

Our way of obtaining energy to do stuff is deeply unsustainable. If we collapse at this point, we as a species might not get another chance to be great.

I don't have a religion, but i can say i'm a taoist and we don't believe in internet or some shit like that lol, also central america is in the "North american" region of the continent (i don't know about you, but in latin america, the whole american continent is tought as one single continent, unlike USA in which the north and south regions of the continent are separated continents for some reason lol)

And yeah, i can understand why, it's graphic design after all, but i really despise the idea of being forced to use social media i dislike in the first place, i deleted my instagram shortly after i finished the semester, lol.

In some circles, anything south of the American border and stopping at an arbitrary line, is considered "central america" somehow.

Gen alpha is going to have profound mental disabilities once they are in their late adolescence. A good number of millennial and late gen x parents "raising" them have no issues putting them in front of a computer or tablet and let them have a level of freedom on the internet that no child should have at any period in their upbringing. It is really sad to see this, and I hope to God they somehow see the errors in this.

According to scientists the whole mask wearing has reduced the IQ of kids by twenty points. We look to a future like idiocracy.

 

[ILIVEFOREVER]

I used to laugh at boomer humor thinking what they were thinking was outrageous, but now I've been slowly agreeing with them more as time passes. I feel like at this rate we will soon enough end up eternally rotting in VR, exclusively consuming second long content while being monitored by some corporate and/or government entity collecting all of my personal information and lowering my social credit score because I didn't flip enough burgers per minute.

 

[WALFTEAM]

There's an extreme fakeness to social media that goes back quite a ways, and by fake I mean the Five Websites are essentially propped up by venture capital, they're not "organic" companies and took a very, very long time to turn a profit. The commercial internet before them wasn't exactly organic before though - it was just a less extreme version of the buildout and capture we have now.

It is interesting to remember that everyone in charge of the internet right now, all the people running these social media/commerce giants, is no longer a clueless boomer. Every tech titan of today probably has a stash of usnet posts from an earlier time. (This is why there is no comprehensive usnet archive and why google bought up what did exist to intentionally fuck it up.) They have basically grown up with the internet and because of that are constantly getting better and better at exploiting the people on it. It really doesn't get any better from here.

Facebook's Metaverse thing though, that's kind of an odd misstep. It's a very boomer move, because we've had plenty of "metaverses" before - Second Life, VRChat, etc - and Facebook's system offers nothing new or grabby. I thought the big move was supposed to be AR, since everyone is hopelessly stuck to their phones and phones are a virtual requirement for participating in society. You're telling me they ran out of shit to make you do on your phone already?

 

[Sable]

To the end and back. Social interaction is an integral part of the human experience. Social media makes this easy and convenient and therefore will likely never be phased out. Why would it? There's already too much money in it to justify a discontinuation anyhow.

 

[xX.majin_TwEeN.Xx]

Honestly, it's was always kinda my dream for some outcasts on the internet to try form some own society on some exotic island with it's own seperated internet and whole culture. Will it result in a cult? Probably. Will there be canibalism? Most likely. Would I visit it with a wide grin and heart full of love? Absolutely.

It would either go Lord of the Flies style or they'd just do weird blood orgies.

 

[ThyOde17]

According to scientists the whole mask wearing has reduced the IQ of kids by twenty points. We look to a future like idiocracy.

I didn't see the IQ thing, but I saw that scientists are convinced that young children will have a hard time understanding/reading even the most basic facial expressions thanks to the use of a mask in public settings. So I am so sad to know that so many kids will be socially retarded in the next few years.