Future Timeline

Over 50 per cent of users may shun social media by 2025 as misinformation, toxicity grow

A Gartner survey found that 53 per cent of consumers believe the current state of social media has decayed compared to either the prior year or five years ago.

Published: 24th December 2023 12:28 PM

The spread of misinformation, toxic user bases and the prevalence of bots are the reasons why more than 50 per cent of consumers will either abandon or significantly limit their interactions with social media by 2025.

A Gartner survey found that 53 per cent of consumers believe the current state of social media has decayed compared to either the prior year or five years ago.

Concern about the impact of anticipated GenAI use in social media is high and over 7 in 10 consumers agree that greater integration of GenAI into social media will harm user experience.

“Social media remains the top investment channel for digital marketing, but consumers are actively trying to limit their use,” said Emily Weiss, Senior Principal Researcher in the Gartner Marketing Practice.

https://www.newindianexpress.com/busine ... 44538.html

Facebook has definitely gotten worse.

funkervogt wrote: ↑Mon Dec 25, 2023 12:56 pm Facebook has definitely gotten worse.

90% of the content is now either adverts, or from groups I don't even follow. I prefer 2007-era Facebook.

Unfortunately, I will be one of those who will be shunning social media, it getting worse as the years go by. In a few days I will be saying goodbye to FB after 19-ish years on the site and its not what it used to be and the only social media-type app I will be using will be Whatsapp.

Time_Traveller wrote: ↑Mon Dec 25, 2023 2:48 pm Unfortunately, I will be one of those who will be shunning social media, it getting worse as the years go by. In a few days I will be saying goodbye to FB after 19-ish years on the site and its not what it used to be and the only social media-type app I will be using will be Whatsapp.

I thought you were returning to Mastodon?

wjfox wrote: ↑Mon Dec 25, 2023 1:13 pm

funkervogt wrote: ↑Mon Dec 25, 2023 12:56 pm Facebook has definitely gotten worse.

90% of the content is now either adverts, or from groups I don't even follow. I prefer 2007-era Facebook.

I think the future of media will be AI-based as more and more people become skeptical of human biases when reporting news or events they witnessed. Everyone will have a personal AI assistant that pulls raw data (images, videos, voices, etc.) directly from the events through all possible modes, and presents this information to the AI user in a customized format.

wjfox wrote: ↑Mon Dec 25, 2023 1:13 pm

funkervogt wrote: ↑Mon Dec 25, 2023 12:56 pm Facebook has definitely gotten worse.

90% of the content is now either adverts, or from groups I don't even follow. I prefer 2007-era Facebook.

I follow some FB groups just because they put images of hot women in my feed. Ever since the last version of Midjourney was released, I've noticed some of the images are CGI (e.g. Scarlett Johansson's face on a body that is even more buxom, and with the slightest fuzziness to the edges in the image). Based on the comments, 95% of people don't realize it's fake. This seems like a little step towards the decline of FB and the degeneration of society.

A non-sequitur but me just thinking about myself being a no-life Emma Watson enjoyer: ...

I've been pondering about this myself for the better part of a year. In the early days of YouTube and Twitter, you could very easily report bullying, trolling and false information (i.e. "this comment has been flagged as spam"). Ten-something years later, there's almost no moderation on these platforms at all, and every other message I read seems to be written by what I can only describe as perpetually enraged, xenophobic cavemen with zero sense of social etiquette.

A recent example: I watched a video of someone who caught a meteor flashing through the sky on their dashcam. The time it takes for the meteor to become visible is 55 seconds - not even a third of the way through the whole video. And yet somehow, every single top comment was a sassy, whiny remark made by people who thought it took an absurdly long time for the meteor to appear. So by that logic, I guess feature length films are a crime against humanity.

wjfox wrote: ↑Mon Dec 25, 2023 9:50 pm

Time_Traveller wrote: ↑Mon Dec 25, 2023 2:48 pm Unfortunately, I will be one of those who will be shunning social media, it getting worse as the years go by. In a few days I will be saying goodbye to FB after 19-ish years on the site and its not what it used to be and the only social media-type app I will be using will be Whatsapp.

I thought you were returning to Mastodon?

Sorry WJ, I had changed my mind and wanted to keep it that way. If I kept the Mastodon account, the second time around I would be backtracking on my life without Social Media.

I just want to do more things in my life, other than posting it all over a social media site or look at posts then think "I wish that was me or I was there'' most of the time.

Time_Traveller wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2023 7:47 am
Sorry WJ, I had changed my mind and wanted to keep it that way. If I kept the Mastodon account, the second time around I would be backtracking on my life without Social Media.

I just want to do more things in my life, other than posting it all over a social media site or look at posts then think "I wish that was me or I was there'' most of the time.

Well, I hope we can stay in touch, on here and maybe elsewhere, e.g. would be cool to play Star Citizen! I'm nostalgic for those E:D adventures that we did from 2015-19.

wjfox wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2023 10:20 am

Time_Traveller wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2023 7:47 am
Sorry WJ, I had changed my mind and wanted to keep it that way. If I kept the Mastodon account, the second time around I would be backtracking on my life without Social Media.

I just want to do more things in my life, other than posting it all over a social media site or look at posts then think "I wish that was me or I was there'' most of the time.

Well, I hope we can stay in touch, on here and maybe elsewhere, e.g. would be cool to play Star Citizen! I'm nostalgic for those E:D adventures that we did from 2015-19.

Don't worry WJ, I will still be on here I am not shunning all the net . Maybe, I will have more time to pop on here as well. Hope so too but will need to download it when the time arises.

Every FB group I've ever been to has gradually horribly degraded in every way between 2014 and 2020, so that there was no good reason to remain in such groups by 2020. I think FB was possibly better in 2014 than now. Twitter probably as well, but since then, on November 2017 Twitter doubled tweet character limit from 140 to 280 characters, which was a very welcomed change in my book. r/futurology and r/singularity seem to have degraded somewhat too.

If I had a child, I would give that child a Nintendo Switch with some selected by me four single-player (maybe with optional co-op) games. There is no web browser in any Switch. And I would give that child a "dumbphone" with only the most basic functionality. No laptop, no "smartphone", no tablet, no "smartwatch". I would consider giving an E-Ink e-reader.

Here's a relevant podcast episode:

PhpBB is the future.

Side note to ramble about how much I love this community. People here are smart, well-informed, and will give lengthy, thought-out written opinions on almost anything when prompted. Furthermore mudslinging and dumb stuff is almost unseen here

Like an echo chamber of smart people