WE COULD BE WITNESSING THE
TERMINAL DECLINE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Some of the media’s predictions about social
media look frankly apocalyptic at times. It
was speculated that for the photo-leaking
debacle alone, Facebook could be heavily fined
under the European Union (EU)’s General Data
Protection Regulation (GDPR). One former
Facebook Vice President, Chamath Palihapitiya,
has even, in a video interview shared by The
Washington Post, accused social media of
eroding “the core foundations of how people
behave by and between each other”.
Nonetheless, rather than the slow death of
social media, perhaps we could instead simply
be seeing the emergence of a slightly different
type of social media. You might be surprised to
realize that the answer to your own issues with
social media could lie in the app from which
you regularly fetch images to share on the likes
of Facebook and Instagram: the preinstalled
Photos app on the iPhone.
Even within this app, images can be shared with
others surprisingly effectively; a video on the
Apple Support channel of YouTube shows
how. Another video on the same channel
explains how to make a shared album in the app
- and this feature is where the social magic can
really happen.
THE SHARED ALBUMS FEATURE: THE
POTENTIAL FUTURE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Right now, you might rejoice in sharing images
with loved ones on the mainstream social media
sites, and enjoy seeing how they react with
comments, emojis and other elements. However,
Image: Matt Elliott