What are the major social media networks and how are they evolving?

As social media in various forms have been with us for 10 years or so now, we can start to see interesting patterns not just in what tools are currently most popular, but also how their usage varies in different parts of the world AND how this profile has changed / is changing over time.

Social networks are not just a recent phenomenon

As with previous examples of new technologies, the growth of social media has provoked hype and derision in equal measure. We have been here many times before.

Standage (2014) notes how the development of commercial printing in the 16th Century provoked concern from the authorities – that knowledge would spread to the uneducated and undeserving, challenging current power positions. 150 years later, diverse groups of people gathered to share ideas in the new coffee houses, and were criticised for wasting time that should have been spent working. But instead:

‘By providing an environment in which unexpected connections could be made, coffee houses proved to be hotbeds of collaborative innovation’ (p245)

What are the major social media networks worldwide?

Try searching for information about the “top social media networks”. Did you find out anything that surprised you?

How are social media platforms evolving?

So what’s the catch with contemporary social media?

How has your usage of social media changed over time? What are your preferred social media platforms and what do you use them for?

Background reading

For a well written and informative account of the history of social media, you might like to read Standage, T. (2014) “Social Media: the first 2000 years” published by Bloomsbury, New York.

An example of how Dr Sue Black OBE used social media as early as 2008 to help rescue Bletchley Park, try Black, S. (2016) “Saving Bletchley Park: how #socialmedia saved the home of the WWII codebreakers” published by UnBound, London.