Social media is everywhere. There are over one billion people on Facebook, as well as hundreds of millions of people on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat…there are so many social media networks around these days that it’s hard to keep up with them all. There’s no denying that the popularity of social media has exploded over the past decade or so, but what does the future hold for social media? Will it continue getting more and more popular or has it reached its peak?
Facebook’s world domination
Facebook recently announced that it wants to have 5 billion regular users by the end of 2030. Given that the world population is only expected to have reached 8.3 billion by this point, Facebook’s certainly made an ambitious goal of having over half of all people signed up. It’s safe to say that other social media networks have ambitions to increase their user numbers, though their ambitions may not be as lofty as Facebook’s.
Social media fatigue
While social media networks do want to become increasingly popular – they are companies, after all – what about the people who go on these social media networks? A lot of people do get sick of it and give up social media. Some give it up for good, whereas others go back after a break of a day, a week or a month or two. Many people see having social media accounts as necessary, simply because everyone they know has got accounts. While some people avoid social media altogether or sign up and then quit, a lot more people are engaging with it.
A part of our everyday lives
We’re living in an age where social media is a part of everyday life for hundreds of millions of people around the world. Facebook is mentioned in a third of all divorce cases; Twitter appears all the time in the news and you can’t walk past a group of teenagers without hearing them go on about what so-and-so’s just posted. Everywhere you go, you see people on their phones and most of the time, they’re on social media networks. For many people, social media has become such a mainstay of their lives, just like radio, TV and the internet did for previous generations.
It’s only going to get more popular
So it seems like social media has become such a big part of many people’s lives that it is certainly going to be here for the long run. While it’s certain that not every single person in the world will be on social media at any one point, given its current popularity, it’s safe to say that social media is only going to become more popular in the future. Sure, there’ll be millions of people who won’t be on it, but they’ll be in the minority.
