The year is 2004. Construction on the tallest man-made structure to date, the Burj Khalifa begins in Dubai; The European Union expands by 10 new member states; Millie Bobby Brown is born and so is Facebook and with it social media as we know it today. Eighteen years later, are we about to see the death of social media? One author thinks so and he is happy about it. "The age of social media is ending. It never should have begun writes," Ian Bogost in The Atlantic.

Social media didn't start with Facebook. Before that came Friendster, Myspace, Friends Reunited and a myriad of others long since forgotten. These days Facebook is the preserve of your elderly relatives or perhaps you still linger to keep an eye on the few friends who may still post their holiday photos but mostly the site is reserved for the sharing of conspiracy theories and memes that make you wonder why you ever considered the sharer a "friend in the first place".

Facebook started life in Harvard University as a place to see who was in your class and see a visualisation of your social network. Membership was restricted to those at Harvard but quickly grew. It is now the third most visited website worldwide with 2.93 billion monthly users. As it amassed users it also generated controversy morphing from a networking site to a media site. Questions surrounding privacy and the proliferation of fake news have hounded the site ever since. The United States government's former head of technology even went as far as saying that "Facebook destroyed democracy" after the 2016 presidential elections.

This has led to a dramatic downturn in social media use recently. Meta has seen its value plunge by $700bn with some saying that the site is in a "death spiral". Other main players in the game, Twitter and TikTok are also facing difficulties. Twitter has seen a mass exodus of users after Elon Musk borrowed millions of dollars to buy the company. Musk has now said that "bankruptcy isn't out of the question". TikTok has also downgraded its financial predictions by $2bn whilst shares in Snapchat are down nearly 80% on the previous year.

Some users also feel that social media leads to mental health issues due to the addictive nature of social media. Marc Faddoul, co-director of Tracking Exposed, said of TikTok that: "It's not going to make anyone depressed overnight, but hours of consumption every day can have a serious impact on your mental health." And in his book, Stolen Focus, the author Johann Hari calls for "social media companies to abandon their current business model, which is specifically designed to invade our attention in order to keep us scrolling".

Despite its losses Facebook still has billions of active users and TikTok's growth remains huge; the revenue of the Chinese company has grown by $1bn compared to just two years ago. With an addicted user base reliant on these sites it may be that rumours of the death of social media are greatly exaggerated and maybe even a case of wishful thinking.

Yes: Most young people have already moved away from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If these platforms disappeared then very few people would notice the difference anyway and those who did would see an improvement in their mental health.

No: Social media is how people now find out about what is happening in the world. It has democratised the news and allows us to keep in contact with friends and relatives.

Or... Social media has lots of advantages. What is needed is tougher regulation to ensure that it is not misused and does not cause harm.