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The Printing Press
The printing press was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the late 1700s. This gave way to mass communication. I include this not because it is "social media" per se, but because it's a stepping stone to it. This still had a passive audience, but ultimately triggered the protestant reformation.
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The Telegraph
This is the first Social Media in my opinion. The telegraph was invented by Samuel Morse in the 1800s and made it possible for people across long distances to send and receive messages in a fraction of the time of hand delivery. This used 2-way communication and lurched the advances of communication technology forward by eliminating distance issues. This changed the way we fought wars, enabling long-distance strategy discussion.
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The Telephone
Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in ~1876. Much in the way the telegraph changed the way we fought wars, the phone changed the pace at which messages could be received. This further closed the gaps in communication, making it seem like the world was just a call away.
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The Mobile Phone & Computers
The next step up from the telephone was the mobile phone. Jump to 1973 when Martin Cooper, an engineer for Motorola created the first cell phone. The Motorola DynaTAC 8000x cost $4,000. Computers were also starting to be used by companies to try and communicate with each other.
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The Mobile Phone - widely available
In 1982, the first cell phone to become widely available hit the market with the Nokia Senator. It was heavy and came with it's own radio-like base that was the size of a large toaster and weighed ~22 lbs!
No texting, public forums, or mobile games just yet.
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GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications )Phone
The first phone that could call globally was developed in 1992 with the Nokia 1011. Again, no texting or anything yet. But you could call your friend in China! (for a fee) NOTE: This is when I was born, so just 28 years ago, we had just reached the capability to call globally.
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SixDegrees.com
6degress.com was one of the first real social media sites. It worked similarly to Facebook or MySpace with Friends, messages, and comments on posts, and played on the common saying of everyone knowing each other through at least 6 degrees of separation.
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MySpace & Facebook
Facebook was released in 2004, MySpace in 2003. MySpace was open to anyone with desktop internet access, and Facebook was available to those who were invited who had ".edu" email addresses. -
Mobile Social Media
Around 2007-2010 Social Media applications started to appear on mobile phones. Millions of users, by 2010, were logging into Facebook daily on mobile devices. -
Explosion of Social Media
between 2005-2010 more and more sites came online. YouTube in 2005, Twitter in 2006 & August 2007 the Hashtag is born here, Instagram starts in 2010, and Snapchat in 2011. -
Net Neutrality
Though it encompasses all of the internet, Net Neutrality ultimately affects the way that people communicate. Introduced in 2015, It states that no country should govern their internets to the extent of editing. Meaning the internet is a place of shared knowledge and true freedom. In 2017, Net neutrality was repealed. This has caused lots of people to raise their voices (online, ironically) in favor of gaining the freedoms back, -
Zuckerburg Testifies
In 2018, Mark Zuckerburg (founder of Facebook) Testified in front of Congress on the presumption that Facebook had been harvesting data of ~50 million users. Having come under fire so recently (back in 2016) for other problems like "fake news" and influencing elections, the time was right for Zuckerburg to answer some questions. -
Current Social Media
New Apps and platforms are still released every day. TikTok, an incredibly popular new Chinese app, has been sweeping the globe, Snapchat is still holding strong, along with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter & others.
Social Media just keeps growing and making the world more and more interconnected. They change the way we think and the way we communicate.
