Predictions: The Next 5–10 Years of Social Media Societal Trends

To say that social media has had a massive social impact is quite the understatement. Some have been really exciting societal developments:

• Reconnecting or staying in touch with friends and colleagues
• Enabling rapid global businesses launches, messaging, etc
• Unlimited self-expression capability
• A review system for any product so customers can assess quality
• Social and political accountability
• Exciting new communication tools

Others impacts have been less desirable:

• Spreading of misinformation, exaggeration, and propaganda
• A drop in focus and human interaction skills, especially among young people
• Bullying, shaming, trolling, and other poor behavior that lacks accountability due to anonymity or distance shielding
• Potential addiction issues
• A rise in extremism and hatred
• Privacy loss

And others have been neither positive nor negative:

• An entire new series of professions and even industries
• The rising power of “influencers” and the marketing behind that

Social media has only been around for a few years and the jury is still out on these societal trends. While studies tend to prove their existence in the status quo, we’re an adaptable species. Perhaps such things evolve or self-correct. And they haven’t affected us all. Some use social media for good, others for bad, and many are seeing both sides of the spectrum.

Stepping back for a second, it’s interesting to think about where social media is headed next. What will be the next big trends (both positive and negative)? The technology will evolve and we’ll use these tools in new ways. But I want to focus on how society is impacted. That allows us to prepare and react.

Here are my predictions:

1 — Revolutions.

All the extremism we see on social media has had a limited effect. Its biggest example of spilling over into action was with the Arab Spring. Why there? These countries had long-struggling economies. People are much more willing to take action on their beliefs when they don’t have a job and struggle to provide for their family.

So what happens when the economies of larger countries start struggling? This nearly happened in much of the world in 2008 and was only delayed by unprecedented central bank rescues and money printing. It also nearly happened in Europe during various sovereign debt crises. None of the issues of either crisis have been solved, only kicked down the road.

So what happens if/when a larger economy goes into a deep recession? All the frustrations that social media has generated will be more likely to spur people into action. We might see mass protests reminiscent of Egypt or Ukraine. Governments toppled. Declarations of independence. Civil war. It’s unfortunate to predict this. And social media isn’t the cause of this. But it definitely exasperates divisions and helps people organize. So don’t be surprised to see history repeat itself.

2 — Censorship and then a shift in players.

Remember that social media started very early in the internet’s inception. We had AOL where everyone had chat capabilities and a profile. Then we had MySpace. That was dominant until a better alternative came along. Ditto for Digg.

One of the biggest social media trends I see today is the call for censorship. There is a growing call for the social media sites themselves to censor content. Some call for hateful speech to be censored. Others say just ban the terrorists using the platform. People are calling for “fake news” to be filtered out. And in Germany, there’s even a law forcing social media companies to take down content that receives complaints or subject the platform to gigantic fines.

Regardless of your stance on such things, censorship is always judgmental. What’s acceptable or desirable for one will not be for others. Who is Facebook or Twitter to be the judge of what is offensive content or fake news? What makes them so special to distinguish this?

Enter decentralized blockchain. People are already working to build the social networks of the future. And then we won’t have censorship based on what a corporate entity chooses. It will be up to the users to decide on rules and outcomes. I think on a decentralized social media site, we’ll see less concern with the platform itself and more with forming the communities we choose. That might lead to more productive content in some instances and more echo chambers in others.

3 — Personalization.

We’re now on a wide collection of DIFFERENT networks. It’s a bit absurd that we have to login on each separately, enter the same picture and information, and then search for contacts that might be the same across different social platforms.

I see a platform of platform eventually developing. Basically one login and one set of information, and one network. Then you’ll be able to customize who sees what and which apps you use on that platform. That way, you’ll still get to use the best photo app, the best communication app, etc. Likewise, you’ll keep your professional network and content separate from your dating site network and content, for example.

When these companies get out of the business of policing their site’s content, holding all the user information, and maintaining the base platform, they can get back into the business of offering really good creative applications. This also allows us more personalization in how we present our content to those in our networks. You might choose to share different content types: say you paint, record music, or dance…. sharing these things will be as easy as pictures/videos today. You can also easily connect/share professional documents or other collaboration needs. I see it kind of working like WeChat does in China. Apps are layered on top of that single platform.

With more personalization comes more options for how we use it. That will have wide-reaching social effects. On one hand, it opens the door for more interesting use cases and social opportunities. On the other, keeping everything in a single location feels a bit like a dystopian novel.

4 — Merging with reality.

Eventually social media will migrate to virtual reality. We won’t use it on our phones and PCs. It will exist in 3-D and 360 degrees. It won’t be a webpage anymore. It will be interactive and include simulation opportunities.

This will completely change everything with social media and I believe a lot of the effects will be positive. While some may argue that increasing our interaction over electronic mediums is a bad thing, VR allows it to be more personable. You’ll have more opportunity for expression. More features will require talking, moving around, and using all your senses.

Thus I see a bit of rollback in the misinformation, extremism, and antisocial tendencies. People will go back to interacting with real people (even if virtually), rather than social media being primarily about sharing ideas. That’s a positive.

On the other hand, it probably won’t help with addiction, as the quality of social media will increase drastically. And our time using it will be completely disconnected from reality, as you’re using a headset that closes you from the real world. The only amendment is if augmented/mixed reality wins out over virtual reality. However, I believe VR is the far greater technology and has far greater use cases.

5 — A Backlash Leading to the Comeback of Communities

The entire internet made your “community” nearly unlimited. Because you can connect and share content with the entire world, people gravitated toward that power. Social media only amplified that size and power of these larger communities. In fact, you probably wouldn’t even call them communities anymore. They are entire movements.

I think people are starting to resist that, however. I believe people will start gravitating back toward the familiar and trustworthy. Rather than worry about getting thousands of “followers” or seeing your message go viral, I think people crave the humanistic element that communities are intended to provide. I see social media going back to a smaller scale and people forming smaller special interest groups that are more exclusive and targeted. You’ll still have access to the broader market. But people will section off into these groups to avoid the noise (and nonsense) that the broader network inevitably brings to your experience.

This means social platforms will add features to close-off into exclusive groups. Content will be self-moderated. Invites and maintenance features will be added to these groups. And there will be more robust search functions to find the appealing groups you’re hoping to join.

Socially, this has benefits in reducing the impact of trolling, propaganda, and noise. It enables more focus on topics and people that are important to us. However, it also exasperates some of the negative qualities of tribalism.

Concluding

I’m curious what else people think will happen with social media. It’s important to remember that it’s an extremely immature industry and thus open for interpretation of existing tools, changes in them, or outright innovation. One thing is clear… this is an important topic. It impacts all of society and we can all shape a more positive shared experience.

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