The Death of Social Media? Not quite – but it’s changing…
John Wykes, OMV
October 9, 2024
It was 2008, and one of our younger seminarians was expressing great frustration. Why weren’t any of us on Facebook? Facebook was the latest thing, the newest trend. At the time, in the mind of this young seminarian, for us priests not to be on Facebook was not just unfortunate. It was unthinkable.
When I had returned to Boston a few years earlier, Mark Zuckerberg was just a college student living across the river at Harvard. In 2004, “Thefacebook” was an oddly-spelled newbie social media site that was getting some attention in local news outlets (I read all of the articles buried deep inside issues of the Boston Globe). By 2008, Facebook had become an inescapable necessity.
Fast forward to the late 2010s. Facebook had now become something strictly for “old” people. Instagram, TikTok, and other social media giants became the indispensable tools for communication.
And the beat goes on.
Fast forward to the mid-2020s. Social media has become common, standard, even boring…and something to be avoided, at least for some members of Generation Z and Generation Alpha. Don’t trust my word on this. Trust theirs.
“It’s for kids,” said one young man I chatted with recently – one who has just entered the work force and is too young to remember 9/11. “We’ve had social media our entire lives,” he continued. "We associate it with junior high and high school. Maybe college. After that, we want to move on to other things."
"We've been inundated by social media since we were born," said another man in his early twenties, born after 9/11. “Social media is nothing special. It’s just been there – it’s part of life. And I do everything I can to avoid it. I don’t do any of it.”
“I’ve never been on social media,” boasted yet another young person in his very early 20s, as if this accomplishment were a badge of honor. “No photos, no posts…nothing.”
These astonishing (and perhaps hope-filled) statements, coming from young people born in the 21st Century, give us pause. Is it possible that social media, the “latest” astonishing development in communication, is dead?
Not quite. But it’s changing. What’s happening to social media is what has happened to every single communications revolution over the last two hundred years – the new technology leaves its honeymoon phase and then settles into its more enduring place in society.
And the beat goes on.
The last couple centuries of technological advances are filled to the brim with strident proclamations. “From now on, painting is dead,” said French historical painter Paul Delaroche upon seeing a photograph for the first time. “From now on, film is dead,” said numerous people at the advent of digital moviemaking. “From now on, print is dead,” said a good friend of mine in 2008 when most news outlets had developed a robust on-line presence. “From now on, paper is dead,” said another friend of mine in 2014, insisting that all work, from now on and without exception, would be paperless.
These proclamations sprang from the inevitable awe that surrounded the emergence of each innovation. At the time, they sounded trustworthy, authoritative, and definitive. They were also wrong.
This article is being written in 2024. Painters still paint paintings, filmmakers still film films, and newspaper publishers still publish newspapers. Books still exist and paper is still used. Admittedly things have changed – most films are made digitally, newsstands are a thing of the past, and many newspapers struggle. But those who have persevered have done so by finding their new place in society. Twenty years ago, who would have thought that The New York Times and The Washington Post would still be printing physical newspapers twenty years later? And yet, here we are, twenty years later…and so are they.
And what of social media? As hard as it is for some of us to believe, the “gee whiz” phase of social media is now over. It’s like a utility – something no more enthralling than the water pipes running into your house. Being connected to the rest of the world is no longer a miraculous privilege. It’s expected.
As the technology settles down into its more permanent place in society, some people are pushing against it – a concerted effort to recover some skills that have been lost over the last twenty years. And they’re not just pushing against social media. They’re also pushing against digital technology in general.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal discussed parents who are pushing school districts to remove certain technologies from the classroom. One boy received an iPad as part of his sixth-grade curriculum and immediately became obsessed with it. When the parent checked to see what lesson plans he was using, she found that all of his time had been spent on YouTube. The same parents who successfully got phones banned from schools are now trying to do the same with most other screens. Not so that their children can’t learn, but so that they can – and learn some old-fashioned skills like reading books, writing cursive, and thinking clearly. (1)
It seems to be working.
Some reports suggest that young people are now reading more than older adults, and even prefer printed books over e-books.(2) For entertainment and creative filmmaking, they often pass over the crystal clear look of digital video to embrace the grainy, soft look of Super-8 movies, and skip over the pristine audio of CDs and digital files for the snaps, crackles, and pops of vinyl records.
Older adults are getting into the act – albeit for different reasons. Another Journal article asserts that many executives are embracing older technology to become better managers and better leaders. CEOs are no longer on the cutting edge if they own an iPhone (just about everyone does). Instead, the “latest” trend is for bosses to use “dumbphones” such as the brick Punkt MP02. They are cheerfully forcing their employees to jump through hoops – making them wait instead of instantly responding to every text message. To own a brick dumbphone is not a regression – it’s a power move. It forces employees and others to respect the boss’ hours (checking e-mail only three times a day) and to respect family time (the brick gets turned off during the dinner hour). Social media? Not even on the radar. The result is that CEOs feel less distracted and better able to enter fully into meetings and conferences. They feel more connected to their work and their employees – and feel better able to make important decisions when the need arises.(3)
Social media is here to stay. And so is digital technology in general. And both are spending the 2020s finding their proper niche in an ever-changing world – a world increasingly populated by older people looking for new ways to manage the workplace with dumbphones and young people who are increasingly embracing the “latest” technology (like Super-8 films, vinyl records, and books printed on paper).
This author still uses a paper desk calendar – and dutifully visits his Facebook account three times each day. Even as Mark Zuckerberg enters his early 40s.
And the beat goes on.
Notes
1. Julie Jargon, “Parents Try to Opt Their Kids Out of Classroom Technology – After working to ban phones in schools, they are now seeking a return to pencil and paper,” The Wall Street Journal, September 10, 2024, A9.
2. “Gen Z Are Reading More Print Books Than E-Books,” World Economic Forum, https://www.weforum.org/videos/gen-z-are-reading-more-print-books-than-e-books/.
3. Callum Borchers, “Some Bosses Flex Their Power With Decidedly Low-Tech Gear – The latest technology is available to anyone with the money. Only a big shot can say ‘page me’,” The Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2024, A9.