EVOLUTION OF FACEBOOK
I recently looked up the Diffusion of Innovations on Wikipedia. This idea was developed by Everett Rogers. It states that diffusion is the process where innovation is communicated through people in a system.
When thinking about recent popular social media platforms, I immediately thought about Facebook.
Facebook first started out as a networking site for college students in the mid 2000s. It instantly became popular. It spread because it was one of the first, what we now call "social media" platforms to be discovered. It was somewhat of a brand new ideal. It was very exciting to be able to see what your friends were doing and that they could share it on a large platform, instead of just a small text. Better yet, you could react to it!
The downside for Facebook was time. This led to some consequences with its demographic. Originally, it instantly gained popularity and all of a sudden, it was not just with the college kids. Older adults began to use Facebook, which turned away the younger audience. What kid wants their parents to be all over their social media? Now you cannot have a picture with an alcoholic beverage in your hand and your parents question your intentions and location.
So Facebook became popular, which then allowed other social media platforms to develop, like Instagram. So the younger generation made Facebook popular and so popular, that the result was adults wanting to join too. The result of this was the younger generation moving to Instagram.
Facebook is still extremely popular, but over time their demographic has changed. At the start it served as a networking site for college students. Now Facebook's demographic are adults 40+.
This serves to be very true in my life. I, unlike my peers, am actually very engaged on Facebook. But the majority of the content that I see is from my friend's parents OR my parent's friends. Older adults love Facebook I think because it almost serves a daily high school reunion.
So it is very interesting to see that over time, Facebook's demographic has made an extreme change.
https://digiday.com/media/social-platforms-college-kids-now-prefer/
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