Data Visualization : The Rise and Fall of Social Technologies
Given the fact that we spend so much time using communication and social technologies, for my final Data Visualization Workshop Project, I chose to explore social technology trends. When I came across the original data set, I thought it was fascinating and strange that I had been on so many social platforms in the early 2000s that I couldn’t even recall the names of now. In my visualization, I show data taken from The rise of social media, 2019 https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-social-media, www.statista.com.
My limitations were that:
a. There was data missing for certain years for specific platforms.
b. There was a large range between the lowest number of users and the highest number of users — 30mil-2.2 billion, because of which data couldn't be accurately represented for the lower end — which suited my intention of providing a macro view.
c. I didn’t take into account the accuracy of the data given that it was meant to be a visual exercise.
I thought that it would be interesting to plot this data set in a way that conveys how much social technologies became an integral part of our lives as access to the internet and mobile phones increased. While exploring different ways to visualize the data, I was drawn to the sorted stream graph because it allowed me to rank my data for each year, view trends over a period of time, and assign a size to each data point.
My favorite aspect of this visualization is how the lines in the early 2000’s appear trickling to begin with and then gradually expand. The diverging shape that came out in the macro view also shows how many more players came into the market and how much market share in social technology increased. I can’t wait to see how this graph will shape up over the next decade!
