'Facebook is a geriatric ward', claims British newspaper economist. “This is a cemetery. You go in to see who died,” says Felipe Romero, a partner at a cocktail consulting firm. Its current mission is comparable to that of Yellow His Pages at the end of the 20th century. That is, to prove that you exist or that you existed at some point. It was the first social network, bringing baby boomers, Gen There was human interaction, one person speaking, the other person answering, and there was no artificial intelligence on the platform. There was laughter, tears, arguments, and reconciliation. It was an engagement, but no one recognized it. Marketing jargon hadn't yet contaminated everything.
By 2012, leaving Facebook had become the ethical and moral attitude of millennials, who stopped logging in but didn't delete their accounts. Between active users and lost souls, there are 3.049 billion Facebook accounts. “We have a short time left, but we’re still there,” Romero said. In 2023, Facebook's profits soared 69% thanks to multi-million dollar investments by political parties and their candidates, among other things. The “geriatric ward” can sometimes be confusing. When it comes to emotional manipulation that creates a sense of community against a common enemy, nothing beats Facebook. That's why it's still the area where some of the craziest conspiracies unfold.
Entering the second decade of the last century, from 1981 to 1996, a narcissistic and dramatic generation was born: the Millennials. They invented selfies and a whole anthropological and aesthetic category: Instagram. Instagram is full of self-portraits, first amateurish and poorly lit, then semi-professional. Facial recognition algorithms had a field day while an entire generation pouted and tried every filter available. The marketing experts who elevated this generation back then now say it is the “most stereotyped and demonized” generation on the internet. “People between the ages of 25 and 38 are living the Instagram boom to the fullest, and many are more apt to switch platforms, even if they're consuming content on Instagram that comes back from TikTok. They are showing resistance,” says content creator and author Alvaro L. Pajares.
Pajares set up a TikTok account for her grandmother because she felt TikTok was the easiest and most intuitive ecosystem for seniors. She was overjoyed. “Many people over 50 are very satisfied,” he says. According to Pew Research Center data, 56% of U.S. adults ages 18 to 34 have a TikTok account, but only half have posted a video. This behavior is the same as that of users from her 35 years old to her 49 years old on the same social network. On TikTok, most of us are peeking into what a highly specialized minority is producing. The ultimate proof of how unimportant it is for the Pew Research Center to interact there is that 70% of its users never fill out their bio field and never receive a “like”. That's it.
Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, is the most sophisticated generation in the use of social networks, and at least unlike previous generations, they don't need to socialize. They post and don't care what their followers think. They are true digital natives and surf the web by their own rules. According to a 2023 Gallup study, late Gen Z spends about five hours online each day, bouncing between seven different platforms. Although they are the majority on Instagram (Gallup estimates that by 2027, 80% of Gen Zedders will be on Instagram, compared to 79.1% with a TikTok account) , are spending more time on Chinese platforms. Locked down during the pandemic, Gen Z saw their school schedules and leisure time contaminated by screens. That's why they are so passionate about their routines. The longer and neater the better. 1,000 Steps to Skin Care, Rules for Taking a Eucalyptus Bath, and Hierarchies for Organizing Your Closet by White Range. An Anglo-Saxon word for order, control, and everything: aesthetics.
Oddly enough, the generation that seems less keen on cultivating anarchy is iconoclastic towards its networks. Gen Z spends two-thirds of their day on TikTok, but they also go to Instagram to send direct messages. He replaces Google with his TikTok in searches and is having fun on his former Twitter, X. Generation Zeders have turned X into a giant streaming forum for commenting on reality TV. While other generations have snubbed Elon Musk (nearly 10% abandoned Twitter after the tech mogul bought the platform), only 2 Gen Z users have left, according to Gallup research. %was. For them, X is not a space of conflict. Another surprising statistic: Andrew McCaskill, a career expert on his LinkedIn, a bland network for adults. the cut Between 2021 and 2023, 41% of the content on the platform was created by gen-zedder.
The latest demographic pirouette heralds the arrival of Generation Alpha, dubbed by some as mini-millennials. These are currently under the age of 14 and 2.8 million are born every week around the world.british newspaper times “They know how to edit a video, but they don't know how to tie their shoelaces. They eat sushi and think spam is a type of email. They learn to drive an electric car. But they've never seen a landline.''Additionally, they lock themselves in the bathroom with their parents' phones and TikTok accounts, and take retinol before they turn 12…the largest generation in history. It will be. Perhaps they will stop finding social networks interesting. A fast-paced, intelligent and artificial world awaits them.
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