5 Social Media Trends for the future

2016 has been a banner year for social media apps such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram each trumping the other with exciting innovations to wow their respective user bases. As someone who dabbles in mobile apps here are 5 trends which I believe will revolutionize the world we live in the years going forward. Btw, I hope you like salt because you can only take the trends below with a pinch (Nah! I believe you need a bucket) of salt. 

1. Facebook Stars: Move away Film Stars as Facebook Stars take center stage. In cricket, an all-rounder is someone with career stats of more than 2000 runs, 100 wickets and 100 catches. Similarly, a Facebook Star is someone with more than 1000 friends, whose every update receives a minimum of 300 likes and 100 comments. Facebook Stars are the traffic constables of the social media world, when they post something everything stops and even people who are fast asleep wake up to respond. What talent! What power! What imagination! 

• What's Next: Who needs Beauty Pageants when we have beauty queens who receive the undivided love and attention of their followers. Who needs elections when social media leaders are arousing awareness every day in their social media followers.  Who needs humanitarians when the do-gooders who are saving humanity (by taking display pics, throwing parties, planning trips etc. etc..) are being tagged and thanked every day. Let's save the tax payers' money and choose the next beauty queen or leader from these Facebook stars. After all who knows people who halt our lives with their updates might just halt poverty, recession and even wars.

2. Social Media Productive Work (SMPW): Some of us had SUPW (Socially Useful Productive Work) classes at school where in we used to invest time to learn vocational activities such as book binding, carpentry and embroidery. Now you tell me what use are these activities in the social media world? Knowing carpentry is not great until that person can take a picture of their work and post it on Facebook to garner at least 300 likes. So, composing great posts, taking pictures and posing for pictures is more useful than all the activities I stated above and all these useful activities should be considered social media productive work.

• What's Next: SMPW classes will replace SUPW classes. SMPW classes will also be added to the curriculum of schools and colleges across the world. Message/post writing classes will replace business writing classes. Students will also learn creating meaningful messages/posts with just emoticons and interpreting messages with emoticons. Photography with specializations in taking selfies, group pics and display pics would be introduced as a vocational course. By 2025, anyone failing in these courses wouldn't be allowed to create a social media account and EMOJI would earn recognition as an international language.

Hopelessly addicted: (Courtesy: Pratik Gupta)

3. Whatsappitis: Over the last couple of months I have had many of my friends confess that they have hardly been able to sleep while responding to friends continuously on WhatsApp. WhatsApp wakes them up, props them, stimulates their desire to eat, inspires them to work and even puts them to sleep (after they have waited at least a few hours for that message which never ends up coming). If a simple WhatsApp message has the power to do all this then WhatsApp is the most dangerous invention in the history of human kind.

• What's Next: De-addictions centres for Whatsappitis, Facebookosis and Instagramia would open in every nook and corner wherein patients would be deprived of Wi-Fi and mobiles to cure them of their addiction. By 2020, social media addiction testing (like drug testing) would become mandatory for all companies. A Facebook Star with a certification in photography/message writing and a clean chit in the social media addiction tests would become the most sought after candidate in recruitment drives.  

4. Marriage Ahoy!: 2016 was the banner year for marriages we saw marriage teasers, trailers, movies and even marriage highlights. It's not enough to just say you've been married anymore, you must demonstrate all the pomp and circumstance that comes with it. Then there are the marriage photo shoots where the couple desperately imitate their favourite actors and exhibit that filmy love which they are yet to find in their own hearts. Marriages are no longer made in heaven they are completely made in the photographer's lens.

• What's Next: A marriage blooper reel like the end credits of many Jackie Chan movies where everything that went wrong with the function would be shown. A marriage reality show reel where all the friends of the bride and bride groom would express their opinions and feelings about the marriage via live feed (when marriage is real why not give it a reality show feel?). Relationship statuses which describe every facet of a relationship such as it's working, it's convenient, it's one-sided, it's triangular, it's rectangular, it's boring, help! etc. etc. would be introduced for us (mere mortals) to understand the extremely complex relationships of our friends. By 2020 marriage would cease to be defined as the union of two souls and would instead be defined as the circus which unfolds on one social media platform and ends on another. By 2025, we will have expiration timers set on relationships. After the time runs out the relationship status is deleted and the other person is instantly blocked on all social media platforms.  

5. Instant friends/followers: Today you can make friends on social media faster than you can cook Maggi noodles. One of my friends who has more than 1000 friends on Facebook tells me she only accepts requests of people with like-minded interests. Wow! if only everything that people wrote on their social media profiles was true, this world would be a much better place to live in.

• What's Next: We live in a world where instant relationships, instant love, instant breakups, instant gratification, instant recognition, instant fame and instant fall from grace have become the norm. Anything which is not instant is not cool and anything which is not cool cannot be a character trait. By 2020, we will only describe human beings as hot or cool and not as good or bad. Everything is instant including stereotyping people. Excuse Me! What about values? I heard they are not instant. Bah! Who cares about values? When was the last time your post received a like/comment just because it had values?

Before I close out the blog, I do have to honourably mention some other trends which might soon invade our lives. They are: customizing last seen status on WhatsApp for some over possessive friends, ranking Instagram pics on their HQ (hotness quotient), automatically unfollowing someone who doesn't like your post/pic on Facebook and setting reminders for friends as soon as they come online on WhatsApp. I hope all these trends come true to bring more order to the chaotic lives of the social media junta or would it be the other way around (more chaos to their orderly lives). While I figure that out please don't waste your valuable time on this blog any more. Somebody must be pinging you or liking/commenting on your post at this very moment. Get going! Do some social media productive work!  

Until Next Time,

Yours Sarcastically,
J.J. Chaitanya