The Cambridge Analytica scandal with Facebook has led to one of the biggest revolutions in our perception of social media, which until now was delivering on its promises of data privacy.

Facebook itself was a benchmark in the series of multiple attempts that were made by several platforms including Friendster (2002), sixdegrees (1997), and LinkedIn (2003) to make the internet a virtual global society. It, at the time, understood the real-life social requirements of the users and gave them the solution which they would readily make up a significant part of their life.

In terms of both the number of users and durability of the concept, Facebook has for a long time, stayed at the forefront. Everyone thought that the ingenious of Mark Zuckerberg will always keep the platform contemporary, making it last as long as any virtual society can, until now, when the peoples’ apprehensions seem to be coming true.

The foundation of this shift was laid when people began to realize how the internet is making them spend more time in front of screens, socializing with people with no profound benefits of creating societal connections. This hit, though applicable on all the social media platforms, had worse effects on Facebook, it being the most prominent one of the time.

To make matters worse for Facebook, rival platforms with substantial visual content like SnapChat and more specialized messaging and dating apps like Viber and Tinder, also entered into the market at the right time, when the advanced technologies were there to support their features for enhanced UX.

It is during this time itself Facebook launched its photo-messaging app Instagram, post its failed attempt at acquiring SnapChat. It is this app and the other subsidiaries of the company like WhatsApp, Oculus, and Messenger, that prompted us to give the verdict that even the definitive #DeleteFacebook trend would not lead to the end of the Facebook.

Further backing for the verdict comes from the sheer persistence of the company in delighting their users. Like Snapchat, Instagram too has updated its interface in June 2016 to show feeds sorted in accordance with their relevance instead of the traditional reverse chronology. Now to make its interface more coherent, while keeping its concept for relevance intact, it has announced, in its press report, that new features are being tested on the app to make the experience of browsing Instagram ‘more enjoyable’.

These features include the addition of a “New Posts” button that will give access to the users for whether they wish to check more recent posts or not. The app is also redesigning its algorithm to ensure that newer posts, depending on their relevance and user’s preference, appear first on the feeds. These changes will ensure that you don’t miss any of the popular posts from your close friends, even if they were posted days ago, nor will it make your feed look stale, full of relevant but weeks-old stuff.

So whether you delete your account from Facebook or not, the conglomerate isn’t going to leave the market anytime soon. It has far more understanding of its users and the sense of keeping its users happy than to let any scandal from third-party to make it meet its closure.

Resources:

http://www.adweek.com/digital/short-history-of-social-media/

https://instagram-press.com/blog/2018/03/22/changes-to-improve-your-instagram-feed/

https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/22/instagram-recent/