The Roman Empire.

No, no, that’s Not right. What I meant to say was

The Rise & Fall of Social Media

Although to some Gen Zs, it might seem as though the same thing.

It’s no secret that Social Media is in a severe decline. It might not be obvious right now, but since this septuagenarian sees it, this decline will likely become a deluge soon. Almost all of my experiences with social media currently come from Facebook, that is what I will be talking about.

I get on Facebook at least a couple of times a week. But, I can clearly see that it is now stuffed with ads that I didn’t ask for. If this keeps up, I will likely even skip those weekly visits. I realize that most people under 30 have already exited FB for other options and left it for us old folk.

I think this might be one of the things that we will point to that started with COVID. I know I say that the Reagan years of the 1980s was the start of all the political insanity that is taking place today. But then again, maybe social media decline, is just declining because it is old-school.

I want to use the rest of this post to talk about how social networking morphed itself into Social Media. Social Networking started way back in the late 1990s as a way to keep up with what your family and friends are doing. It almost never had anything from those you don’t know. That was nice and melded with the technology at the time. It was a bit like an electronic bulletin board.

Then around 2005, everything started changing when FB invented newsfeeds which were delivered in real-time. What your brother, or sister-in-law said became very secondary in FB’s business model. That brings us to the second reason for the move from social networking to social media.

Since Facebook and almost, if not all, of these sites are free, someone has to pay to make it happen, and that means advertising or what I like to call selling-soap. In other words, it was the rise of “sponsored content” Then the second shoe was to try getting more people to come to see their ads. That resulted in a constant deluge of “Friend suggestions”. Of course, all these “friends” you know nothing about, so that results in even more garbage clogging up the network.

Today, social media is more like ad-supported television than a social network. Now, instead of a family/friend connection we are greeted with political polarization from people who have an agenda and willing to pay for it, but have no real knowledge of the subject they are ranting about. That is a bunch of stuff most of us would rather not be exposed to.

All of this exposure to people with radial agendas next to qualified “press” sources has made everything less trustworthy. As a result, “Freedom of the Press”, which is the hallmark of our democracy, is in serious jeopardy.

I’ve used up my 500 words, so enough for now…