Is ‘Path’ dying?

Yanti Sastrawan
Jul 20, 2017 · 4 min read
Source: path.com

Back in 2014, I spent half of the year observing the social media platform, Path, analysing users’ traits and behaviours to their use of the so-called ‘personal network’ app. Though initially it was for writing my Masters dissertation, the results influenced heavily on how I use social media and how I perceived the online environment to the reality of offline to online behaviour.

A few years before I started using the app, Path was already vastly popular among Indonesian urban youth. It was when I moved to London to pursue my Masters degree that I found the relevance in trying a new social media network — despite what I already have seemed a handful. Path was not common to many, but it was one that is very well recognised among Indonesians there, particular with university students. Soon I realised Indonesian Path users were ranked as number one that year (2014). It was no surprise for me then.

Yet lately, I notice that my Path feed has been draining.

Path used to be *the* intimate social media network, one that limits the amount of friends you can include in your feed. It was uniquely different to Facebook (it was simply getting too crowded), or Twitter (you can do much more than 140 characters), even Instagram (more than just photos and videos). The idea that you can curate a social media environment, based on trust and support, was intriguing to be a part of.

In 2014, the app expanded the limit from 150 to 500 friends, loosening its intimate circle within the social media network. Coincidentally, the expansion occurred while I was writing my dissertation, and added a question of criticism on the ‘personal network’ focus.

Now, the app is merging its functionalities alike to other existing competitors. With its throwback feature alike to Facebook’s, and Cover Story similar to Snapchat, there’s a shift on our online daily routines based on social media popularity.

Last year, Instagram embedded a new feature that we are familiarised with Snapchat. The Instagram Story feature became a refreshing, and exciting factor to what was mundane. By allowing Instagram users to try this feature, which was a new experience to many including myself, the app became clickbait. We are constantly lured to view and share snippets of our casual, daily lives.

I admit, I do like the Instagram Story feature. Not only because it is fun, but it’s a new perspective to experience a social media environment. It wasn’t a scroll-through feed, but a play on visuals. The idea that it’s temporary when a story lasts for 24 hours long, allows users to let loose from their ‘Instagram aesthetic’ trait and gives a unique insight to different lives — whether it’s personal or professional. It gives a platform for a different voice, one where we can be shameless in because we are given the liberty.

However, it does reveal something more apparent to me, particularly for Indonesian urban youth:

We like to live an insta-life.

The more technology evolves, the more we want convenience, easy and fast access. Quick, immediate, instant. We consume so much information on a daily basis, that information is fed and shared all at once. And when our online habits are getting banal, we lose the excitement and turn to new features over boredom.

Path was a personal network app, because it paid attention to details of our social lives. It was one of the first that easily lets us share where we are, who we are with, what movie we are watching, what music we are listening to into one feed. It was also one of the first apps that allows emotional responses, giving us an in-depth perception on interaction within the online environment.

But, with its evolvement and being more alike to its competitors (up until today), Path has lost its genuine trait and users are turning over.

We have mundane lives different to each other, but we are unconsciously, and always, hungry for attention. To still seek for the views, the appreciation, the admiration, for the likes, and the loves. As social media allows us a play of representation and selection of our personal lives that would appeal an audience, it drives us and makes us feel alive in social media environments.

Never mind the personal network, Path has proved it and we know it doesn’t exist any more — at least not in social media.

The real personal network always exists offline, of ones who you truly trust and support. Of confessions and rants and rambles you can converse for hours with friends. Of new discoveries and accomplishments and milestones you have achieved through the years. Of true love and bitter struggles and relieving experience.

And it doesn’t matter if you need to prove it online, because you know it’s real.

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