The Evolution of Social Media

What is social media? When we hear that term today, we immediately think of websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many others that provide more or less the same functionality: a digital platform for our social interactions. But looking back at the history of those interactions, it’s clear that these platforms did not form from thin air and are instead a natural evolution of communicative practices society has employed for thousands of years. The need to connect has not changed; the methods have, in step with the advances in technology that make it all possible.

The Evolution of Social Media – A Timeline

A few notes about this timeline: it is woefully incomplete. The various innovations that played a part in shaping our modern digital communications do not follow a neat, linear path from there to here. There are overlaps between industries, companies, inventors, and entrepeneurs. Hardware inspires software, which in turn inspires hardware.

255 B.C.	The oldest piece of surviving mail dates back to 255 B.C., when Egyptian Pharaohs relied on couriers to deliver their mail. For the next several hundreds of years, hand-to-hand delivery of letters would be the only way to communicate other than directly in person. That is, until…
1844	“What Hath God Wrought?” Samual Morse invents the telegraph, the first technological advance towards faster communication. While not wireless, telegraph technology soon spread across the United States and eventually between continents.
1877	In the late 1800s came the telephone. The first US patent belonged to Alexander Graham Bell, but there were several others working on similar projects during the second half of the century.
Late 1800s	Around the same time that Bell and his peers were working on the telephone, several other inventors were working on wireless telegraphs, or radios. Nikola Tesla demonstrated a working radio in 1893. By 1901, the first trans-Atlantic message had been sent utilizing radio technology.
1930	Philo Taylor Farnsworth, a farmer and an inventor, patents the first television technology based on an idea he had while plowing a potato field.
1936	The Universal Turing Machine While other inventors may have theorized or even built computers prior to this date, it was Alan Turing’s abstract concept of a universal computing machine that shaped modern computer technology as we know it today. His thoughts on a machine that could easily switch between tasks based on code was, at the time, revolutionary, but today it is what makes all our devices work the way they do.
1969	The Advanced Projects Research Agency Network (ARPANET) is launched by the Department of Defense. This is the first functional internet, or simply a shared connection between computers.
1972	Ray Tomlinson writes the first email program; within a year, e-mail is one of the main activities done on ARPANET.
1991	Tim Berners-Lee develops the World Wide Web.
1993	The first web browser, Mosaic, is developed by Marc Andreessen.
1997	The first social media networking website, Six Degrees, is launched.
1997	AOL’s Instant Messenger (AIM) program launches in the United States.
2002	Friendster, the first social media network, is launched.
2003	Myspace is Live.
2004	FaceBook is Live.
2007	First Generation iPhone Launched.
Let’s pause here for a moment. The first technological advancements that led to the creation of social media as we currently know it dealt with the infrastructure of various forms of communication. Once the internet was launched publically tech advancements in this area continued, accompanied by advancements in software. The first inventions were quickly providing us with new ways to communicate; as we progress on this time, innovation happens so quickly it’s hard to say whether we’re creating new platforms to keep up with tech, or creating new tech to accomodate additional platforms.
2010-2011	Pinterest, Instagram, Quora, Snapchat, Google+, Twitch all launch.
2016	Cambridge Analytica exploits Facebook security flaws to gather data from quiz takers, along with millions of their friends. Later, connections are made between Cambridge Analytica, the data they collected, and the weaponization of that data for political purposes.
2019	A picture of an egg becomes the most viewed photo on Instagram. What a time to be alive!

The last two points on this timeline were placed there to showcase two extreme uses of social media: exploitation of data collected from social media platforms, and the power of the speed and sizes of these interconnected networks.

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