Social media is a product of the 21st century. Of course, you can try to find analogues in the past, but they will all be far-fetched, because there has never been such information interaction between people. And it is clear that it will widen and deepen. Where will this lead us?
Although no twentieth-century futurist could predict social networks, their emergence was an inevitable result of the introduction of electronic communication systems. The first software platform that can be called a prototype of a social network appeared in 1995 based on the Classmates.com portal. In his image and likeness, the "Classmates", well known to us, were later constructed. However, that old project did not yet allow the user to create their own profile and an individual list of friends, but only helped in the restoration of previous connections.
The social network in the modern sense appeared a little later: SixDegrees.com, launched by Andrew Weinreich in 1997, became it. Now any user, connecting to it, could open a page with personal data and through it make new acquaintances by interests. In Russia, around the same time, the amateur network FidoNet flourished, which was intended for professional communication of programmers, but quickly went beyond the narrow specialization, opening up opportunities for network contacts for many people. The SixDegrees.com portal closed in 2001, and FidoNet was supplanted by the massive expansion of the Internet, but the need for users to exchange opinions and impressions persisted. Demand, as you know, gives rise to supply, and soon several popular systems appeared that compete fiercely with each other.
All these networks have one thing in common - the desire to share unique information and discuss it beyond any boundaries. There has never been anything like it before, and the growing popularity of social media makes it a new factor influencing politics, economy and culture.
MARKET OR BAZAAR?
You need to understand that modern social networks are, first of all, a commercial project. Otherwise, it is unlikely that Mark Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in 2004, would be today one of the richest people on the planet. With over a billion registered users, you can make money, for example, from advertising. Analysts have long noticed that potential buyers are more likely to respond to ads when they are linked to personal associations. The problem was the level of trust: ten years ago, social networks were perceived as something unusual and strange, making purchases through them seemed a risky business, but now, when almost everyone who has access to the Internet uses them, psychological barriers have been broken, which also records a significant increase in sales … Therefore, leading corporations devote more and more resources to work with social networks,focusing primarily on the situational offer of goods and services that may be in demand in connection with news or fashion.
Another important property of social networks for trading is the ability to collect statistics on the desires of users, because potential buyers voluntarily publish data about their preferences, interests, views, which helps sellers contact them with targeted offers. If you've been using any social network for a long time, then you've probably noticed how much the content of advertising banners changes as you shop or respond to surveys. Revenue from such advertising (called "targeted") is already estimated at billions of dollars a year.
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Another promising way to attract clientele is the creation by corporations of special communities in networks, participation in which guarantees receiving up-to-date information on new products, cumulative discounts on purchases and priority solution of technical problems. It is clear that this market is still far from saturation, since a generation is growing up, for which social networks have become a familiar medium of communication from early youth.
Marketing experts note that in the future, the main task of advertisers will continue to convince the buyer that he is “the most important and the best”, but now it is necessary to take into account his increased mobility, reacting to changing preferences much faster and more flexible than before. Simply put, the strategy of targeting customer segments is disappearing, and the focus is on individual work with everyone.
Is it possible to take into account the interests of an individual and respond in time to their change? Perhaps, if sufficient statistics have been accumulated and effective algorithms for its processing have been created. By the principle of feedback, they will contribute to the transformation of disparate social networks operating with separate profiles and communities into a single interactive media space, in which fashion brands, original ideas, and new meanings will be formed.
DARK SIDE
What can we expect from social networks in the near future? It is likely that they will begin to influence not only the formation of purely economic needs, but also trends in politics. The parties of a new type and the network media that support them will be formed. Many active politicians will want to enlist the favor of network parties; moreover, this environment itself will begin to nominate outstanding leaders. Social media will be able to build a reputation for their leaders or, depending on the situation, destroy it. Unusual doctrines and ideologies will emerge.
Culture will be even more fun. Here we should expect the emergence of new media stars, whose work will initially find massive support in social networks. Accordingly, there will be projects focused primarily on user groups and indulging their needs. We will see amateur shows and serials, the most successful of which will gain an audience of millions by taking it away from television. It is likely that at some stage the social networks will be engaged in producing talented creative people: musicians, artists, writers, directors, public figures.
The prospects seem dazzling, but it should be remembered that any process always has a dark side, and often it appears earlier than the light one. We have all heard the dire news of the suicide epidemic, some of which are believed to have been triggered by communication in the so-called "death groups." And this is just one of the possible negative trends that the expansion of social networks will generate. Terrorist organizations, religious sects, criminal clans, porn studios, hackers, fraudsters, blackmailers get the same ground in the networks for developing their activities as everyone else. And confronting them with the right to privacy will be much more difficult than today. Society will have to develop tools that will help in one way or another block crime on the network, because the more rights are given,the higher the responsibility becomes.
SPACE OF MIND
Futurologists believe that someday the human mind will merge with the network. For example, an interface that will allow direct exchange of information with a computer will go into mass access, and virtual reality technology will transform this exchange into a form of sensation that is familiar to us. In this case, social networks will become not a set of formal descriptions of a person's personality, but a part of the personality itself, its continuation. And then we can talk about the birth of the collective mind.
Further options are possible. There is a danger that there will be a loss of individuality and the alignment of thinking along some unified simplified patterns. However, I want to believe that people, on the contrary, will get a chance for even greater personal growth, for fundamentally new knowledge about themselves and those who are around.
Anton Pervushin