The world of social media is always changing and 2023 is likely to see more changes, especially after a year like 2022.
Social media is such an integral part of modern life that any change to a platform can be seismic, and this past year has been defined by change. TikTok's star continued to rise, Meta struggled to stay relevant as Mark Zuckerberg committed to the Metaverse and Twitter collapsed under Elon Musk.
Experts at Northeastern University say the social media landscape in 2023 will continue to be defined by these powerful players – but in ways we might not have expected.
TikTok remained one of the biggest social media hits of 2022 and will likely remain so in 2023, says John Wihbey, associate professor of media innovation and technology at Northeastern. However, factors in global politics could affect the platform, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance. Congress is considering banning TikTok US Government Phones as part of its massive spending bill, and more than 15 states have banned the app government-issued devices. As relations between the US and China continue to evolve, the platform could face even more regulatory hurdles.
“One could imagine — if things continue to heat up between the United States and China — that the company could start to come under pressure from regulators,” Wihbey says. “Some of the bloom may be coming off the rose a little bit because the elites and the leaders in the United States are really starting to focus on this issue. TikTok can become more of a political football the way Facebook did after 2016.”
But more generally, TikTok's algorithm raises questions that the world at large is just beginning to consider, Wihbey says.
“TikTok, for all its glitz and novelty, doesn't change the underlying concern that we're essentially building platforms to capture human attention in ways that are somewhat illusory, possibly harmful, not ideal for, especially, young people,” he says. Wihbey “That's one thing we have to deal with.”
Going into 2023, the biggest question mark in social media is still Twitter. After buying the platform for $44 billion, Elon Musk spent his time as CEO layoffs of workers and raising the ire of Twitter users with policy changes on the platform, some of which were based on the results of informal polls on Twitter. Musk announced this week that it will be resignation of managing director and is looking for a replacement, but does that mean his successor will be able to right the ship?
“At the end of the day it's not going to solve any problems because at the end of the day it's still not clear if Elon is treating Twitter completely like another engineering company, like Tesla or SpaceX, or if he's attuned to the fact that it's very very much a company that depends on understanding human dynamics and how people interact,” he says Jacob BartNortheastern Associate Professor of Marketing.
Regardless of how Twitter moves forward, Musk's chaotic tenure as CEO has already started ripples that could turn into tidal waves in 2023.
In the wake of Musk's handling of Twitter, new platforms have been created. Mastodon, a decentralized social networking platform, is the most prominent. The platform is stacked 2.5 million monthly active userswhich is still a fraction of Twitter 450 million but it does demonstrate that social media alternatives outside of company-controlled options are possible.
“Will Mastodon become a global superpower? No,” he says Rahul Bhargava, assistant professor of art, design and journalism at Northeastern. “Will it become a viable alternative? Actually, I think it might, which is great. We need more social media channels and we need alternatives. We cannot let this important communications scaffolding be ruled by three capitalist American corporations.”
Mastodon may not be the next killer app, but Bart says it's very possible that an entirely new platform will step in to fill the Twitter-shaped hole in the market. Social media success is an exponential growth game where platforms rise and fall quickly as they gain or lose traction.
“It's entirely plausible that a platform we've just noticed today will be the biggest talk of the town in 2023, because the nature of social media platforms is such that the network effects are powerful,” says Bart.
As for Facebook, Bhargava argues that Meta's approach to the platform “dooms them to failure.”
“Facebook can no longer succeed unless it invents something that is used by many billions of people,” says Bhargava. “There are only so many things that could be used by many billions of people.”
The company's value plummeted in 2022, falling about 70% in less than a year, partly due to a lack of confidence that the metaverse, Zuckerberg's vision of an immersive VR-driven social experience, will be that billion-user idea. Bart expects Meta to begin integrating some elements of the metaverse into Facebook and Instagram in 2023, but the platform's success in the new year will live or die based on Facebook's ability to “mimic the competition.”
“Sure, they're trying to figure out if they can replicate that 'secret sauce' of TikTok,” says Bart. “The quality of recommendations is fantastic, which keeps people hooked on TikTok. I think Facebook will try to replicate that by trying to optimize the recommended content that they show in the Facebook News Feed.”
As with most things in social media, the best way to see the future is by looking to the younger generations. Gen Z's social media habits are already shaping a future for how technology will be used moving forward.
“We always have to watch the younger crowd and their tastes and trends change because that will affect things upstream for the older generations,” says Wihbey. Are they so enamored with very public facing social platforms where you actually post to the world? Probably not. Maybe they'll deal more with encrypted apps. … Maybe they will be much more careful about their data and how they express themselves.”
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