I'm not sure younger people do age into a social media product. To give an example, I'm about the youngest (~35) that my cohort still uses facebook. people slightly younger than myself (~30) tend to use whatsapp and google calendar for the useful functions of Facebook and instagram for doomscrolling. They have no reason to switch, except if someone slightly older is 'pulling' them towards the platform. But the only time I've seen that happen is on facebook marketplace, where they're interacting primarily with strangers.
I don't think social media is like a minivan, where a different lifestyle suddenly makes it make sense to switch. People are on social media for the other people that are there, I don't see the incentive the other people would have to migrate at a certain age, seems more likely they'd change how they use it (as indeed happened with Facebook). Maybe I'm misunderstanding your premise?
I think social media totally could be like a minivan if the companies took it seriously and built tools for folks at different stages in their lives. Instead they seem to be locked into chasing the youngest people and the most mindshare, always.
In my life a lot of the reason folks got off FB was 1. the experience became trash and 2. the brand became toxic. Neither of these things are about folks moving to the better, newer social network just cuz that's where everybody was.
In general I think the social media companies have no actual vision but are spooked about becoming the next Friendster/MySpace so they constantly react, desperately trying to not become irrelevant.
I think also that figuring out something that works in social media is hard and somewhat random; absent a framework to help imagine new futures people will always become reactive and defensive. Of course SM companies have to frame that as innovation and convince their shareholders that "becoming tiktok" is somehow visionary and helpful because "yes we're losing eyeballs but we're going to double-down on what we do really well and learn from it because we think the future has space for many types of social media" doesn't convince shareholders.
Idk, rambling now, but so frustrated at the whole market.
I don't think social media is like a minivan, where a different lifestyle suddenly makes it make sense to switch. People are on social media for the other people that are there, I don't see the incentive the other people would have to migrate at a certain age, seems more likely they'd change how they use it (as indeed happened with Facebook). Maybe I'm misunderstanding your premise?