The Future of Social Media — Extended Reality

Social media is one of the biggest connectors of communities, people and friends all over the world and has developed from nothing in a time span that’s nothing compared to other world changing systems. How will it develop in the future and is there a way to shape that?

The past

It was in the 80s and 90s that baby social media sites were developed, giving regular people access to real-time online chatting and other things like email. This quickly evolved to more advanced online networking sites, giving millions of people access to information and chatting platforms! Growing exponentially in the blink of an eye, this turned into blogs, then platforms like MySpace, then Facebook, then Snapchat, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter and the list goes on.

A common pattern in the evolution of social media is the appeal to youth. Social media has always been a way for youth to connect — meaning that platforms grow with their audiences. Facebook is used by older people, Twitter by millennials and older Gen-Z, Instagram by mostly Gen-Z, and the cycle will continue.

Another trend is the way social media has changed according to attention spans and visual content. Older social media was mostly text based — messages with character limits to be posted so people can read and comment, like, etc. Newer social media is more visual. The newer users of social media are just more attracted to social media that uses images, videos, colours and more. Chat platforms like Google Hangouts have been replaced with thinks like Snapchat, a more visual alternative.

Community social platforms like Facebook were replaced by platforms like Twitter, then Instagram which is more image focused with short captions for text. Stories are also now everywhere, 24 hour bursts on daily updates or information that changes quick. Media consuming apps have also changed — with people going from platforms like YouTube to alternatives like Vine, and now TikTok. Short videos that catch viewers’ attention in an attempt to get quick, easy interaction with content. It works.

What’s next?

So these are the patterns of social media. What’s next? What will be the differing factor on the next big social media, whenever that will come up? Here’s what I think.

Extended Reality is the future of social media. This means the connection of real and virtual environments, with more human-machine interactions and connections.

What would this look like?

We can already see so many people trying to lean in this direction with platforms like Meta and the Metaverse, even though that didn’t go exactly as planned. Imagine social medias that would show content based on your exact surroundings — chatting with people in the store you’re in, being able to recognize people on the street with the same interests or passions, finding mutual friends in crowds or live advertising for finding quick deals. I believe Augmented and Virtual reality is the future of social media and one day, we’ll be living in a world combining the real and virtual environments, making life as easy and fun for the regular person.