The future of social media, depicted a century ago.

In February 2014, Facebook will celebrate their 10th anniversary. In 2004 some Harvard students created one of today’s most impressive internet company. Could anybody imagine at that time how it would change people’s lives? In the constant change environment we live, 10 years is a lot of time. Can we predict the future of social media? Maybe the answer is there since 1922.
Before Facebook was created, I used to work as a consultant and tought on eBusiness in a Business School. “eBusiness” was a very trendy word, everybody wanted to work on “it”, whatever it was. I used to say to my students that internet was about 10% of its potential, but we really didn’t know accurately since we didn’t know where it could take us. We were young, and we thought we knew everything about internet. Obviously we didn’t. Some years passed, and the “Internet 2.0” was the trendy word to use in every keynote, then the mobile apps and now the internet of the things.

The truth is, whatever predictions we want to do about where internet (as a communication network where different services and devices leverage on) is going to take us, we’re not even close to understand the impact of these technologies in our lives, as we couldn’t do it with social networks like Facebook. Maybe it’s time to look at the past, but not the recent one.

Vladimir Vernadsky

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Vladimir Vernadsky (1863 – †1945) was an Ukrainian scientist known for popularizing the concept of Biosphere with the book of the same name written in 1926.  Just for the record, on his religious views Vernadsky was an atheist.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 – †1955)  was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who conceived the idea of the Omega Point (a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which he believed the universe was evolving) and developed Vladimir Vernadsky’s concept of Noosphere.

In his 1922 book, Teilhard de Chardin defined the Noosphere as the “sphere of human thought” is what many call Global Consciousness. “As mankind organizes itself in more complex social networks, the higher the noosphere will grow in awareness”.  In 1922 there weren’t even computers, but there is no doubt we’re now more connected than ever, organized in every time more complex social networks, and technology has been (and will be) the main enabler of this evolution.

Since 1998, Roger Nelson from the Princeton University, directs the Global Consciousness Project, to analyze the correlations on apparent random data due to fluctuations in global consciousness. Recent events like Typhoon Haiyan in Philippines generated a measurable impact, which is very interesting to follow.

Although it can be perfectly explained just with the digital communications “sphere”, what I would call the “Digisphere”, there are some less conventional theories about how our consciences are not only resonant, but are connected through this Noosphere. This Parapsychological perspective could explain many phenomena often attributed to divine causes.

But the most interesting perspective  about Teilhard de Chardin is the one related to the Omega Point. This theory, developed in The Future of Man (1950)  (and The future of Social Networks, I would say), represents the point where complexity and consciousness reach their maximum point. Other authors have similar views relating this convergence to technology: the singularity.

So when reflecting about the future of Social Media with all this in mind, the Internet of the Things will maybe evolve to the Internet of the Brains, and we will all be connected into the most complex social network ever.

P.S.: Many Sci-Fi movies have treated the subject, two come to me, The Matrix and Wall-e. These are good options to watch at home for this Christmas period where Constant Change Ahead will take a break. I wish the best to all of you.

See you next year!