It’s no secret that social media has evolved over the last few decades, becoming an integral part of everyone’s daily lives. As we look ahead to the future of social media and begin to see new patterns in how platforms continually update and evolve their sites, I decided to list a few of my predictions for where I see social media going over the next 10 years.

Firstly, with developments like the Instagram Shop and TikTok Shop, I see social media becoming a new wave of sales shows like QVC, which were previously only available on mainstream media like radio or television. There will also be more control for content creators through this development, as they can just set up a live stream and sell or recommend products to followers or people just scrolling past on their timeline.

Another prediction, I feel, will be a few years in the future, but would still find interesting. If possible, it would be social media-exclusive shows from streaming platforms, as we see Netflix absorb podcasts and other forms of social media to their site. I think a reverse will happen, where Netflix and other streaming companies will begin to make content that’s only available on social media, especially given the extensions platforms are giving to their content time limits, like TikTok expanding to 10-minute videos. 

With both of these predictions in mind, I can also see social media go the opposite way, as more and more people are using social media to discuss ways to get away from our phones and kind of get back to reality, and I could also see social media becoming more of a marketing space rather than a space of sharing personal content. However, I think the first predictions are more likely to come true as social media platforms continue to evolve, finding ways to keep users on the apps and connected.