Covid-19 has led to us spending more time on the internet than ever. It is becoming increasingly clear that our digitalized lives will have a greater impact on 2022. Following a series of reports published by the Wall Street Journal on the extent of Facebook’s research into the negative impacts its image-sharing platform, Instagram had on the mental health and body of young and impressionable users, especially on teenage girls, the last 12 months have highlighted how Big Tech cannot be trusted to safeguard its young and vulnerable users.

The global backlash following the release of the report led Instagram to “pause” efforts at developing a version of its application for children under the age of 13 in September. However, the company is likely to resume its work next year after several consultations and discussions with parents as well as child safety experts.

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Additionally, the growing amount of time spent on the internet has led to the introduction of new tech concepts such as Non-Fungible Token which enjoyed a remarkable year in 2021, and it is expected that the craze around NFTs will only increase in 2022 after popular auction house Sotheby’s enjoyed a record-breaking year of sales such as the sale of Beeple’s digital artwork Everydays- The First 5000 Days for a ground-breaking $69 million in March. Facebook (NASDAQ:), rebranded itself as Meta to further promote the notion of the metaverse, which is a collection of digital spaces.

This will lead to an increase of online activity in the future. Efforts at regulations have led to the introduction of the world’s first internet safety laws known as the Online Safety Bill by the UK parliament, and it is focused on holding Big Tech companies responsible for whatever takes place on their platforms. Because the tech sector has not been well regulated in recent years, this is especially significant. This has lead to more social vices including bullying and racism online.

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