Has Social Media Started To Lose Its Grip?

Social media began in 1997 when the first social media site “Six Degrees” was created. Since then, it has grown and developed, creating the social media sensation we know today. It seems anybody who’s anybody is on social media these days, including well-known businesses and even famous people. The platform has grown from being an avenue for friends to connect and stay in touch, to an all-around tool for people and companies to connect, promote themselves, and even advertise their goods.

Over the last couple of decades, the volume of social media platforms has expanded, with many of these platforms still existing today.?LinkedIn gained prominence in the early 2000s, YouTube was released in 2005 and by 2006 both Twitter and Facebook had become available. Since, we have seen the rise of other social media sites, including TikTok, Tumblr, Spotify, and Pinterest to name a few.?All offer a slightly different platform, varying functionalities, and a unique format, each allowing people and businesses to connect and share their stories.

This rise in platforms and functionalities has resulted in a rise in social media dependency in both individual people and businesses and this is something that we have welcomed with open arms.?We have embraced the opportunity to advertise on social media, speak to our customers directly, share our news, and showcase our brand.??The recent social media outage alone is proof of our heavy reliance on it.?This outage impacted billions of people, the detrimental impact of this outage even made headline news.

We saw reports of people panicking, realising that their main channel of communication with friends and family in other countries was suddenly gone.?We heard about students and businesses who were unable to conduct essential meetings, impacting upon their studies/business. And we witnessed companies who advertise solely on social media see a sudden (albeit temporary) drop in traffic to their website, impacting their profitability. What’s more, we can see that concern is now growing over whether social media outages are to become a regular occurrence.

In more recent years we have started to see more cracks and problems with social media, in addition to the aforementioned outages.?This now begs the question, is social media losing its grip? Have we become dependent on a system that is fundamentally flawed?

Even if we don’t see regular social media outages, there are still a number of other issues with social media that we should not (and often cannot) ignore.?One of the biggest concerns has always been cyber attacks and data leaks and this worry is only continuing to grow.

Whether you are a person using social media for fun, or a company using it for business, you end up providing a lot of personal information and data.?This includes personal information that is requested when you set up your profile, payment details for advertising through or purchasing goods through social media, and even random information you divulge daily.?

A simple post in which you tell the world your favourite movie, or mention your mother’s maiden name can be used against you.?This information is enough for a cyber-criminal to guess your login details and passwords, gain access to your accounts, create new accounts in your name, and even purchase items using your bank account.?Yet, we give this information freely and often without consideration. We take for granted that this information is safe, but in reality, it isn’t.?Social media platforms do their best to protect their user accounts, but we’ve heard many instances of data leaks and cyber attacks that have led to customers' personal information being made public.?This problem is magnified when we see how many social media accounts are linked together.?Instagram and Facebook accounts are very often linked to one another, in addition, you can log into Spotify and most games through Facebook. Without realising it, we are giving social media more and more of our personal information.

Regulating social media is also another issue.?People are braver when they are sat behind a screen, they say things that they perhaps would not have said in person and social media can only do so much to regulate this.?Over recent years there has been a surge in cyber-bullying and discrimination through social media. The recent banning of Donald Trump from social media is proof of this and sadly, that is just the tip of the iceberg. Adding to this the fake news circulating on social media and the impact that social media is claimed to have had on things like the US elections and it is clear, that yes, in some ways, social media is in fact starting to lose its grip.

I’d love to hear your comments.