Are all social media apps becoming the same?

Various social media logos merged into one (Ruby Marie Costa-Thompson/The Puma Prensa)

Written By: Ruby Costa, Features Editor

If you’ve happened to visit any social media platform lately, you'll likely notice a few common traits: short-form videos, twenty-four-hour stories, and state-of-the-art AI features.

Many social media platforms have recently started incorporating the same characteristics, whether it’s Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or Snapchat. In fact, at a glance, many of them look almost identical now. Though some might still hold unique functions–like YouTube’s plethora of long-form content or Instagram’s note feature–it seems that the developers behind the most popular social media platforms have all synonymously started to update their websites and apps, moving in the same direction.

These updates can bring great new features and increase a platform’s popularity. Still, there is also a glaring problem with how similar all these platforms have become: social media is slowly turning monotonous.

One of the most significant contributors to this is the rise of short-form content, which started back in 2013. The app Vine set the stage where users could create six-second looping clips and post them to the app for others to view, like, and comment on. In 2014, Musically joined the game, where clips could be up to a minute long but were fundamentally for the same purpose.

After ByteDance, a Chinese company founded by Zhang Yiming, acquired Musically in 2017, it was announced to be shut down just a year later. It then went on to be merged with TikTok, taking the ladder name and quickly gaining popularity. TikTok had been around since 2016, but its success went through the roof when it joined Musically’s old platform, harboring more than 200 million users at the time of its death.

Ever since, TikTok has made a significant name for itself with teens and adults alike, reaching beyond what it originally was: a platform where tweens lip-synced to songs and aspired to be comedians. Now, the content on TikTok ranges from casual, fun videos made by teenagers to cooking tutorials or informative docu-series from licensed professionals. This mix of fun and serious is a major contributor to TikTok’s diverse user base.

In recent years, many other platforms have tried to mimic TikTok’s success, implementing short-form content on their platforms even if it doesn't relate to the platform's original purpose. Instagram reels came into fruition in August 2020, YouTube Shorts in September of the same year, and Snapchat spotlight just two months later. And while that might seem like a good thing–isn’t more variety always better?–it's not exactly a positive when you look at all the platforms as a whole. Many creators–who either want to make a quick buck or want to reach larger audiences–will post the same short-form content on multiple platforms. Some might genuinely have a passion for video making and contribute unique ideas, but the sad reality is many creators don’t fit into that category at all.

A large amount of the short-form content you’ll see online today is shallow, clickbait-y, and exploitatory; humans don’t even make some of it. It’s there for one purpose: to make money. With most platforms having some version of monetization for the things creators post, making low-effort content and getting high-earning profits is dangerously easy.

Impactful quote from the article (Ruby Marie Costa-Thompson/The Puma Prensa)

This not only makes it harder for good content creators to be found, but it can also be dangerous when seen by children or easily influenced by people. Ads, inappropriate content, or scams can be mass-produced and posted on multiple platforms, and most are not taken down or censored due to the sheer quantity. Even without the danger this creates, low-effort content like this can sometimes make platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram insufferable. It decreases the trustworthiness of these apps and the respect that they receive from their user base.

Twenty-four-hour stories have also become a fast-spreading wildfire among social media platforms, starting with Snapchat stories in 2013. Instagram implemented this feature in 2019, and TikTok caught on about three years ago, in 2022. Like short-form content, many creators will post the same thing on their stories across multiple platforms, which can raise the same issues. Though this is usually not as harmful as short-form content, it can be.

More concerning is the implementation of AI, though not in the form that has been around for many decades. Apps like Vine and Musically used AI to customize users' algorithms, and it's no new invention in the world of computer programming. However, in the last few years, AI has become more human. It’s also easier to interact directly with it, like Snapchat’s AI chatbot, introduced in 2023. 

The ethical concern around AI is a well-worn topic, and many don’t appreciate how it’s shoved in your face when visiting most websites and apps. Even trying to simply search for something on Instagram brings up the Meta AI search bar, which was introduced this year, and you can’t escape AI-generated videos on any video-sharing platform.

Most of this AI content is repetitive and un-creative, and every day that goes by, more and more is mixed in with what humans have made. This only decreases the variety of online content, slowly turning every social media platform into the same thing.

While AI-generated content can be amusing, and the implementation of new features can be exciting, the negative outcome of both is apparent. Eventually, the only distinguishing thing between social media platforms will be the name and the user interface, which essentially renders having more than one platform useless. There is limited time before this happens, and there is no foreseeable reason for it to stop. It's disappointing, but it’s also no surprise. As our society constantly tries to one-up itself and create more and more without finalizing what it already has, more things are bound to end up with the same fate as social media.

And, as users, there's nothing we can do but sit back and scroll.