I live in a household (read: a shoebox in the West Village with my fiance and my dog) where social media apps are commonplace - hell, even my proposal this past summer had a social media theme to it. Recently I started thinking about the evolution of social media apps, and how my engagement with said apps has changed over the years.
Let's go back in time for a moment, shall we? Back to the summer of 2005...
I remember using Facebook (or The Facebook as it was referred to back then) for the first time during my summer going into college - the very first day I signed up, I received a private message from a girl who was going to be attending the same college as me:
"Maxim.. you are very hott [sic], but why the f@#& is your pic of you and some girl? I thought you were def taken... you need a new pic!"
From that point on, I was hooked - I couldn't believe that flirting with girls was THIS easy (17 year old Max was so naive...).
For the next several years, I (like most late-teens and 20-somethings) would spend hours a day on Facebook - I was hooked.
BTW if you're wondering, this particular girl is now married with two kids.
Fast forward in our time machine, and we're in 2014 - almost ten years later, and there are social media apps launching every day.
Still with me? Here's where things start getting interesting.
See, the amount of time that the average person spends on social media websites/apps each day can't possibly go up that much more (after all, there are only 24 hours in a day). Having said that, with the launch of new apps every day, people are starting to split their time between platforms. It's becoming increasingly difficult to maintain a very active social presence on ALL apps - sure, you can technically have a picture you put on Instagram be automatically posted to Twitter, Facebook, etc., but wouldn't you agree that that defeats the purpose of using different apps for different reasons?
Somebody who was spending 1.5 hours a day on Facebook and 1.5 hours a day on Twitter is now spending 30 minutes on Facebook, 30 minutes on Twitter, 30 minutes on LinkedIn, 30 minutes on Instagram, 30 minutes on Pinterest, 30 minutes on Snapchat (or Snaphack if you're a guy - you're welcome, best $0.99 you'll ever spend), etc.
Obviously the combination of time/app will vary based on individual, but the point remains the same - with each new (popular) app that comes out, engagement with other apps is going to marginally go down.
Since we'll never really get to a point where people are using 30 different apps on a daily basis, I see this playing out one of two ways:
- We'll start seeing more and more consolidation within the industry (a la Facebook/Instagram), with new "conglomerates" that offer a platform with various features; or
- Apps will just start fading out until people have a comfortable 4-5 apps that they CONSISTENTLY use (and this might be a rotating list as new apps come out)
What do you think? How have you been dealing with app/time usage?
@MaximSpiegel | MaximSpiegel@gmail.com
