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Social media are the "chatrooms" of today

It feels like it was yesterday that chatrooms were all the rage. Everyone and his brother seemed to go into chatrooms on what was then America Online (now AOL), Yahoo!, and other sites. On America Online, for example, you could choose from a wide array of chatrooms catering to everyone from those who were "40 and single" to "movie lovers." People really took it to extremes, though. I remember there being a chatroom called "AOL Prom" where kids actually pretended they were at a prom dancing with each other. No joke! Before dating sites like Match.com became popular, many people took to these chatrooms to find love.

I liked going into the city-specific ones, as well as the chatrooms dedicated to sports talk. However, even though a few remain, chatrooms are mostly a thing of the past  (of the late 90s to early 2000s, to be exact). In the world of online chatting, they seem to have been dethroned by social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Google +. Though these platforms don't have chatrooms per se, the manner in which people communicate with each other on, say, Facebook walls, is certainly reminiscent of the chatroom banter many of us engaged in.

I realize, however, that you can't make an apples-to-apples comparison. For example, many people went into certain chatrooms intent on hooking up with someone else. On Facebook, you don't exactly see people saying "I'm 48/male/single, looking for a nice girl who lives in Southern California." Instead, the dialogue mostly revolves around whatever it is that that particular Facebook page is all about -- whether it's your cousin's page or that of your local news station. The way I see it, sites like Facebook are used for two key reasons: (1) to keep in touch with friends and family (2) to receive updates from retailers, news outlets, and other organizations. 

As I alluded to earlier, people interested in meeting others locally will likely turn to sites like match.com and meetup.com. However, social media have taken the place of chatrooms in the eyes of people who want to find someone on the net with whom to discuss the news, sports, or other topics of interest.

To be sure, this is the age of social media, and it doesn't look to be losing steam any time soon. I firmly believe, however, that, like chatrooms, the popularity of social media platforms will eventually begin to wane. In fact, I'm pretty certain social media will give way to something else that is probably in the works as we speak. 

Do you agree that social media serve a similar function as the chatrooms of the late 90s/early 2000s? Were you ever a fan of chatrooms?

To read earlier posts, please click this link: How to Understand People
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