Experts
have suggested that while social media has grown in quantity, features and coverage
over the past 10-20 years, its evolution could be traced back to the “dawn of
human interaction” (Edosomwan, Prakasan, Kouame, Watson, Seymour, 2011). This
timeline contains 20 key events of the evolution of social media from 1970’s to
this day. In the 1970’s and 1980’s we see
technologies, such as MUD, BBS Usenet, and that could be considered the foundation of social media since they
had features of sharing information with other users. In the 1990’s, sites such
as sixdegrees.com and classmates.com were launches. These sites are more
similar to the social networks we use today. In the 2000’s we see the
introduction of sites that lead social media today. In the 2010’s, while there is
only one major introduction, events in this time period show how important
social media has come to be. Society should be aware of the changes that have
occurred for many reasons. David McCullough once wrote “How can we know who we
are and where we are going if we don't know anything about where we have come
from and what we have been through, the courage shown, the costs paid, to be
where we are?". While he does not refer to social media, it applies to it as
well. If we don’t understand the evolution of social media then we might not
know how we know if we are using social media properly or whether we are using
it to its potential. We cannot fully
understand social media if we do not look at how it got to be what it is
today. Social media is made up of
changing technologies which “affects how we see the world, our communities, our
relationship and ourselves.” Due to the importance and the effect that social
media has on our lives we must understand it.
Edosomwan,
S., Prakasan, S., Kouame, D., Watson, J., Seymour, T. (2011). The history of social media and its impact on
businesses. The Journal of Applied
Management and Entrepreneurship, 16, (3).
