On the Misconception of Social Media as a Recent Phenomenon

For some reason we think social media is a relatively recent phenomenon. However, social media has existed from the beginning. The internet itself is grounded in its nature as a social medium. Email has had a strong social component (hence its wide-spread adoption). It is a mistake to attribute the birth of social media to the advent of new tools such as Facebook or Twitter. Such thinking inhibits our ability to see where social media will “spring up” next.