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

kenetic.wav

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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.
 
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VastExpanse

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The net shrunk the world. It connected disparate communities. Everyone is now within reach.

Like small town social dynamics, social media is hyper-connected social activity. This is why you see small town dynamics online (reputation maintenance, projecting strength/success, networking, etc).

However, this massive, privately-owned, centralized digital variant is far worse. Competition is egregious. Signaling is amplified. Trust and real connection is harder. Privacy issues. Vulnerability to algos. Yet it's rich media, accessible, and free. Digital narcotics.

Those who seek peace of mind, connection, truth, meaning, and privacy minimize their surface area in those realms and travel deeper.
 
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I'm afraid it may get so ingrained in society that there is no come back. But there will always be a sizeable portion of people who don't use it anyway, so we may get some kind of a parallel society. Like for example here. Agora Road is way different than the mainstream forums and social media.
 
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I guess it would become more corporatized and shilled aggressively in every aspect of our lives especially with the COVID pandemic restrictions forcing us to spend more time on the internet than we normally would. I agree with you that people are very samey online, however.
 
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containercore

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I think we are basically at full-scale societal adoption. Having a facebook is already orderline necessary for work.

As for the technology itself maybe there will be new attempts at micro-scale content platforms like twitters, vines and tiktoks, and maybe some will catch on but the fundamental model of social media is pretty much established and set in stone. The fact that facebook's latest groundbreaking visionary demo for the future of social media is a cross between second life, VR chat and a realistic wal-mart shopping simulator gives the impression that all innovation in the field has been exhausted.
 
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brentw

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I'm proudly anti social media.
No facebook, no twitter, no instagram, or any other bullshit.
Going on about ten years now.
You gotta try it, your life will be so much better.
 
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VNDL2K

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I'm afraid it may get so ingrained in society that there is no come back. But there will always be a sizeable portion of people who don't use it anyway, so we may get some kind of a parallel society. Like for example here. Agora Road is way different than the mainstream forums and social media.
exactly, we are already creating two parallel societies now. in time, the two will only distance themselves from each other.
 
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MorphedSnowman

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Agora Road is way different than the mainstream forums and social media.
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.
 
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Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意

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I fear that social media will become the new normative for interaction on a daily basis as we get further and further through the generations, until we get to the point where everyone is at 3 generations separated from anyone who actually knows what it was like before times got like that.

Ironically, my stance on the internet has almost flipped in this boomer-like mentality. I remember the days of spending all my time on the computer, looking through forums, finding cool sites, and playing video games. It was the shit. My parents were a generation older than my friends parents, though, and would say all the classic stuff like "No one forms real connections online", "Computers are all fake stuff", "Go outside and play something real", "Go meet real people", all that stuff.

Nowadays... I say the same thing about social media...

I think that the difference is, though, back in my days, we still did go outside and play, meet real people, interact, do hobbies together, etc. These days, a lot of kids just stare at their phones. I know teens who, when they get together, they just sit in the same room and stare at their phones the whole time, occasionally letting out a laugh as someone drops a meme in their group chat. That's some real dystopian shit. I hate sounding like a boomer when I say, "Go outside, grab a stick, and hit your friend with it. That's what I did back in my days". It just reminds me of all the years my parents spent shitting on me for being so into computers (and how ironic their meltdown was when I dropped out of being a CS major to pursue becoming a construction business owner).

Is social media a bane? I think so. But I wonder if that's just because we haven't fully evolved to integrate it efficiently. There was a time where people felt about cars how they feel about social media. And its true, cars cause a lot more deaths and pollution than horse and buggies did, but... who would you talk to that says, "When will cars end? When will they go too far? Damn, Gen A is so reliant on cars, its sad to see that they don't know how to get anywhere without them...".

I'm so conflicted. Social media used to be looked down on as garbage for weirdo freaks who couldn't socialize. Now its normie and us weirdos look down on the normies for using it. What is the inevitable end point? Is there one? Will social media evolve into something new and we'll go through this exact same struggle all over again?

I won't say I'm much better, I use my smart phone all the time. I use GPS all the time. I don't have a physical phonebook, just my contacts list and DuckDuckGo. I use Discord. I use Telegram. Is the fact that those things don't make up my life what truly sets me apart? Is it the fact that I build tables and dice rollers for fun that sets me apart? Is it going on walks through my neighborhood without my phone that sets me apart from the previous gen and the new gen? Am I exactly like the boomers I was so against once upon a time? 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?

So what if social media becomes the way people communicate? What if that evolves humanity further than it ever has been? We see the bad now, sure. When things first start, there's always bad. We look back at the introduction of electricity into society as a good thing, but what if it wasn't? What if people looked at electricity exactly as we look at social media now?



On another note, too, what if social media collapses? So much industry is based on social media right now. What if social media is a bubble and it pops? That is what truly worries me, I think. Imagine the dystopian nightmare if, in some hypothetical situation, we suddenly lost all our ability to use phones and computers. Look at how people are acting when they think they have to be locked in their house all the time? Riots, murder, chaos, mental breakdowns. Now, imagine this situation, but you take away a normies access to Twitter, Facebook, their texts, their calls and contact book. Me, that's another day, but for some that's their whole existence. We might see a collapse like we've never seen before and, between that and a future where social media is everything... I'm really not sure which future is worse. We can recover from both, in the same way, but they both have devastating prospectives.
 
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brentw

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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?
You're overlooking another possibility.
One I find a little more compelling with each passing year:
Maybe the boomers were right.
 
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Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意

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You're overlooking another possibility.
One I find a little more compelling with each passing year:
Maybe the boomers were right.
We look back at the introduction of electricity into society as a good thing, but what if it wasn't?

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.
 
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kenetic.wav

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The net shrunk the world. It connected disparate communities. Everyone is now within reach.

Like small town social dynamics, social media is hyper-connected social activity. This is why you see small town dynamics online (reputation maintenance, projecting strength/success, networking, etc).

However, this massive, privately-owned, centralized digital variant is far worse. Competition is egregious. Signaling is amplified. Trust and real connection is harder. Privacy issues. Vulnerability to algos. Yet it's rich media, accessible, and free. Digital narcotics.

Those who seek peace of mind, connection, truth, meaning, and privacy minimize their surface area in those realms and travel deeper.
I definitely agree. I feel it's pros and cons to the internet/social media. However the cons outweigh the pros a bit. It seems people have been more disconnected with social media.
 
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kenetic.wav

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You're overlooking another possibility.
One I find a little more compelling with each passing year:
Maybe the boomers were right.
Hmmmm u may have a point
 
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kenetic.wav

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I fear that social media will become the new normative for interaction on a daily basis as we get further and further through the generations, until we get to the point where everyone is at 3 generations separated from anyone who actually knows what it was like before times got like that.

Ironically, my stance on the internet has almost flipped in this boomer-like mentality. I remember the days of spending all my time on the computer, looking through forums, finding cool sites, and playing video games. It was the shit. My parents were a generation older than my friends parents, though, and would say all the classic stuff like "No one forms real connections online", "Computers are all fake stuff", "Go outside and play something real", "Go meet real people", all that stuff.

Nowadays... I say the same thing about social media...

I think that the difference is, though, back in my days, we still did go outside and play, meet real people, interact, do hobbies together, etc. These days, a lot of kids just stare at their phones. I know teens who, when they get together, they just sit in the same room and stare at their phones the whole time, occasionally letting out a laugh as someone drops a meme in their group chat. That's some real dystopian shit. I hate sounding like a boomer when I say, "Go outside, grab a stick, and hit your friend with it. That's what I did back in my days". It just reminds me of all the years my parents spent shitting on me for being so into computers (and how ironic their meltdown was when I dropped out of being a CS major to pursue becoming a construction business owner).

Is social media a bane? I think so. But I wonder if that's just because we haven't fully evolved to integrate it efficiently. There was a time where people felt about cars how they feel about social media. And its true, cars cause a lot more deaths and pollution than horse and buggies did, but... who would you talk to that says, "When will cars end? When will they go too far? Damn, Gen A is so reliant on cars, its sad to see that they don't know how to get anywhere without them...".

I'm so conflicted. Social media used to be looked down on as garbage for weirdo freaks who couldn't socialize. Now its normie and us weirdos look down on the normies for using it. What is the inevitable end point? Is there one? Will social media evolve into something new and we'll go through this exact same struggle all over again?

I won't say I'm much better, I use my smart phone all the time. I use GPS all the time. I don't have a physical phonebook, just my contacts list and DuckDuckGo. I use Discord. I use Telegram. Is the fact that those things don't make up my life what truly sets me apart? Is it the fact that I build tables and dice rollers for fun that sets me apart? Is it going on walks through my neighborhood without my phone that sets me apart from the previous gen and the new gen? Am I exactly like the boomers I was so against once upon a time? 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?

So what if social media becomes the way people communicate? What if that evolves humanity further than it ever has been? We see the bad now, sure. When things first start, there's always bad. We look back at the introduction of electricity into society as a good thing, but what if it wasn't? What if people looked at electricity exactly as we look at social media now?



On another note, too, what if social media collapses? So much industry is based on social media right now. What if social media is a bubble and it pops? That is what truly worries me, I think. Imagine the dystopian nightmare if, in some hypothetical situation, we suddenly lost all our ability to use phones and computers. Look at how people are acting when they think they have to be locked in their house all the time? Riots, murder, chaos, mental breakdowns. Now, imagine this situation, but you take away a normies access to Twitter, Facebook, their texts, their calls and contact book. Me, that's another day, but for some that's their whole existence. We might see a collapse like we've never seen before and, between that and a future where social media is everything... I'm really not sure which future is worse. We can recover from both, in the same way, but they both have devastating prospectives.

wow very well thought out opinion. I like hoe you think !
 
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kenetic.wav

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I'm proudly anti social media.
No facebook, no twitter, no instagram, or any other bullshit.
Going on about ten years now.
You gotta try it, your life will be so much better.
What do u do in your spare time ? or how do I go on about ur day. I'm an artist so I want to utilize social media but not to a point where it's consuming me.
 
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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.
 
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