At 22%, nearly one-fifth of the global population use Facebook. In 2017, Adweek report that users are spending an average of 50 minutes a day on Facebook owned apps alone – Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. When growth projections are applied, the figure over a lifetime for all social media use is an eye watering five years, four months (Cohen, 2017).
The book Antifragile states “The longer a technology lives, the longer it can be expected to live.” (Nicholas, 2012) – in other words, every day a technology ages, it proves it can survive another day — it gets stronger as it ages. Social media is in its third decade now, and though variants of it have strived and died – Digg, Myspace, Friendster – its essence is still here with no indication of slowing. This essay explores the future of social media with specific focus to how its technological development will actually humanise it.
The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will continue to fundamentally change social media. Sharing content at optimal times will become irrelevant. The current mode of thinking is that posting content at peak-users-online time increases reach – the number of views a post gets, as there’s a greater audience. Instead, algorithms will learn precisely what content individual users respond ‘best’ to. Every like, tweet, react, comment, share, linger, hover, tap will be recorded to build a unique profile of behaviours, interests, and predictions about the individual. These metrics currently exist, and inform what content and adverts are shown to users, but the future innovation will come from how algorithms apply these insights. One could argue, just as the uncanny valley exists in humanoid robotics, it also currently exists in social media content allocation algorithms. Currently, social adverts either miss the mark completely, feel irrelevant, or feel intrusive. For example, a person may talk privately in Facebook messenger about struggling to sleep, and minutes later receive a sleeping pill product suggestion in their news feed. It may even specifically mention how people living in the same town with the same age use the product (Williams, 2014). It could be argued that AI, in conjunction with machine learning, will overcome the ‘big brother is watching’ feeling currently associated with the social media advertising experience. Users won’t know why they’re being shown content, but it will just feel right.
The scope for feeling specific content is outlined in Kramer et al.’s massive (N = 689,003) 2014 Facebook experiment. Over one week, some users were exposed to happier social content, others were exposed to sadder social content. After a week of manipulated content, participants were shown to share more positive or negative content respectively. This lead researchers to believe their tweaks had successfully manipulated Facebook users’ emotions (Meyer, 2014). Social media of the future will be more considerate to users’ emotional states. It may display content to keep users feeling happy, though there is worry the technology could be used to tailor specific emotions to specific adverts – exploiting users’ emotional states. Social media’s increased awareness of users’ emotions may make the platform feel as if it were empathetic and understanding. It may even feel human, as if a closer friend were suggesting content. Except it won’t be. It will be controlled by artificial intelligence.
In 2014, Facebook acquired Oculus VR for USD $2 billion. Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg described the move as “A long term bet on the future of computing” (The Economist, 2014). Three years later, VR remains undemocratic. The hardware is lacking, price point unjustifiable to the mass market, and the experience is not shared (Wu, 2017). Facebook Spaces promises to change that. Announced at Facebook F8 conference 2017, the technology promises users will be able to ‘meet’ in VR via the social network, offering a truly shared experience. Users could explore, take selfies, and share any digital content as if they were pulling it from their pocket in person. When VR technology ‘hits’ social media the reaction of some may be disgust. The older generation may argue it’s eroding ‘real’ social connection – the young, who have gradually been exposed to this technology, will see it as enabling social connection. Social media has a unique way of making uncomfortably intrusive technology feel comfortable. When Apple launched Find My Friends (a location sharing app) in 2011, it was described by Cultofmac.com – usually very pro-Apple – as ‘evil’, ‘creepy’, ‘lame’ (Milchman, 2011). A Google Trends search shows it never gained much interest. Yet, when Snapchat launched its Snap Maps location sharing tool in June 2017, it was an overnight success. Mass adoption; positive sentiment outweighing the negative (Moloney, 2017). The technology had to wait until culture had become comfortable with constant connectivity.
VR may be the future, but a process of gradual adoption will have to come first.
To get people comfortable with the idea of social Virtual Reality, it may first come in the form of Augmented Reality (AR). Google attempted this in 2013 with Google Glass, though they didn’t adequately address the social consequences of using Glass. The technology used AR to display social and informational content from a pair of adapted glasses. Unfortunately, Glass users were dubbed as “Glassholes” because the technology was viewed as selfish, invasive, and pretentious. However, since 2013, Snap Inc. (Snapchat) has put AR in every users’ hands by making it fun, accessible, and social. The antonym of Google Glass. For example, a cute 3D dog face graphic can be applied to any one or two faces in simultaneously and then shared to friends in still or video format. In November 2016, Snap Inc. released their first piece of hardware, Spectacles. The pair of glasses have limited functionality, only recording video directly to the Snapchat app, but begin to address the social issue associated with connected glasses. First, they are colourful. This immediately makes them feel more fun and carefree. An unobtrusive tool to share moments as they happen. Secondly, the glasses show an animation when they are recording. If it were an ominous red LED, people may feel like they were under surveillance. If the product didn’t show when it was recording, people may feel anxious. One could argue Snap. Inc is trying to make the idea of social AR wearables easier to swallow, priming the market for a future social AR product launch. To add weight to the argument that AR is the next step in social media, Snap Inc. filed a patent in May 2017 showing glasses with an integrated display and embedded sensor technology (Flynn, 2017). However, most notably, Mark Zuckerberg stated at F8 conference 2017 “All the work we’re doing here will go into the glasses that we all want”. This clearly shows a commitment to the notion that Augmented Reality can be more than a mere cartoon filter on one’s phone. Zuckbererg envisages a world where social media becomes our reality, where a message may not be sent, but left in a physical space.
The definition of social media is fundamentally changing. The once commonplace term ‘social network’ – a system of connected people or things, is now obsolete, replaced by the term ‘social media’ (Google Trends, 2004 – 2017). Social media’s mission statement is now less about connecting the world, but more about bringing it closer together (Zuckerberg, 2017). Paradoxically, as social media develops, people are becoming both more connected and more distant at the same time. They’re constantly communicating, but not necessarily connecting. Snap Maps, for example, constantly communicates the users’ location, removing the need for a person to even ask their friend if they’re home. One could argue future mixed reality technology, informed by artificial intelligence, will change this. The technology promises to offer ‘presence’ like never before. Independent experiences will become more authentic and easier to share through wearable technology. Shared experiences will no longer be bound by geography. The future of social media will be more technological, but it will also be more human.