THIS IS MY LAST COLLEGE ASSIGNMENT GUYS!!

(sorry about the title I had to! :) )

As a twenty-three year old girl, I, as well as many of you ladies and gentleman have witnessed or taken part in many of the changes and trends that have taken place within the media world. Most of the changes a fair amount of us 90’s kids have seen have mostly dealt with advances in cell phone technology and ways in which we received much of our information such as news alerts, friend updates, and even texting. So with much advancement what is even considered social media these days? Well our handy little friend, Google, defines social media as “websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.” Google’s definition goes hand in hand with the advancements I’ve discussed due to the fact that social media has become mainstream through all these technological advances.  

From the start of the Internet hype many people (because it was not only teens exploring the online sphere) seemed to be discovering the AOL and MSN messenger chat community. If any of you recall, this was around the time when we had dial-up Internet (insert laugh cause you all know you remember that tone) and we could only be on it for so long because our mother who was expecting a phone call from her best friend who lived two houses and had gossip to share. Anyways, the social media or way for people to be socially connected back then was through the use of chat or what I can even be described as old school texting of the 90’s. One was simply always able to have conversations (chats) with one single person and have names like *~brownsugar_244~* (yes this may or may not have been mine, whatever) or with multiple people (group chats.) But once you appeared offline, that communication was gone, until your next login. In that way we see that the social media sphere has continued to stay the same with the chat aspects and the fact that people are constantly deleting their social media accounts and reactivating them (just like appearing offline, until the next login) again with continuous ‘advances’ over the years. Now a days however, it is much more difficult for one to be completely offline because we are constantly connected online in a way or another through our cellular devices. I analyze that while social media is still a large part of communication, there is always some sort of trend present with what social media platforms are being used by people all over and which ones may not be as popular at any given time.

 With that being said, the rise and fall of every other website or what may be the hip social media site at any given time, changes more frequently than we probably even pay attention to. More than ever (and by ever I mean basically since our age group started using social media) we have seen people falling off the face of the earth or what is also known as people deleting their social media accounts including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Xanga, Myspace, etc. This happens for a variety of reasons that the trends in social media are obviously linked to.

I begin with the discussion that those in my age group (and mostly my friends as well as myself) began the social media excitement through the use of MySpace and Xanga. Both mediums had the ability to post pictures, design the website to your liking as well as providing a privacy preference of your choice. This became a place for kids like myself to blog about their day and simply post things that we felt were cool. The life of both of these mediums was short lived as Facebook soon hit the popularity charts back in 2005ish (at least for high school kids) by this time, Facebook had already been floating around for college age group. Of course this led us younglings to believe that if college kids were doing it, it was obviously the cool thing to do, and we all jumped on the Facebook bandwagon!

At the beginning of the Facebook era, it was not unusual for us to spend x amount of hours glued to our home computers wandering through the profiles of our friends. It was the norm to update our status almost at a constant pace, write on each other’s walls, and send awesome ‘bumper stickers.’ Facebook ultimately introduced the ‘like’ button shortly followed by the ‘add a cover photo’ option. So what are the reasons in which Facebook use is declining? Well, with the rise of many new users, the OGs of Facebook found that its size became too overwhelming, and privacy risks and tendency to incite drama became more of social burden than anything according to the Huffington Post. Others such as Forbes, stated that with their (Facebook) new features, users found that the site was trying to hard and that was a reason for many to be pushed away.

As I discussed earlier, what is hip at any given time can change quite quickly. Currently while Facebook use is declining, the rise of applications such as Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter in which people can use aliases seem to be the growing trend. Due to that fact that many employers and others of that sort are relying on mediums as such to feel out possible hires, people seem to be seeking out more private mediums.

It is obvious that many social platforms have an average span of ‘popularity time.’ Time magazine describes this ‘like a disease that spreads then dies.” We see this over and over again; people find these websites to be less important in their daily lives and spend less and less time being entertained by a certain platform. 

In conclusion, I see the trend of Facebook decline happening because of newer, more advanced applications people seek out. Privacy issues and long term repercussions are the common denominator for the decline of Facebook (and other website) users.  As Forbes stated, “in the end, Facebook is just an application. And people get tired of applications after a while.” The rise and fall of websites and applications is a never-ending cycle, people become tired of them and continue on with the next popular application. Facebook (along with many other platforms) will continue be around, with less users of course, but again always being part of that communication world.

Bosker, Bianca. "Facebook's Rapidly Declining Popularity With Teens In

Chart." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 23 Oct. 2013. Web. Aug. 2014.

Frizell, Sam. "Facebook Is About to Lose 80% of Its Users, Study Says."

Time. Time, 21 Jan. 2013. Web. Aug. 2014.

Marks, Gene. "Why Facebook Is In Decline." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 19

Aug. 2013. Web. Aug. 2014.

Wortham, Jenna. "Still on Facebook, but Finding Less to Like." Bits Still on

Facebook but Finding Less to Like Comments. New York Times, 16 Nov. 2013. Web. Aug. 2014.

"Google." Google. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Aug. 2014.