ITHACA — Experts at a yearly national tech conference are talking about the latest changes in social media, and some of these trends could have a big impact on how we communicate.

At the annual Code Conference, one of the biggest talking points between analysts was an increase in photos and videos over text online and in social media. Cornell University communications professor Drew Margolin says the rise in use of images is because they have the ability to convey more to people.

“Text is somewhat limited in what can be communicated, specifically emotional things and also relational messages, as well as ideas about how we actually feel about something, or how we can add nuance when people are speaking either through voice or images, facial expressions, and so forth,” he said.

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Margolin says advancing technology may be another part of what’s driving that change.

“People would post text when text was basically all that could be reliably hosted, but now that servers are set up differently, you can send a link to a video, and a person can download that video right onto their phone and view it right there,” he said.

Margolin says the change is reflected in the businesses, with many social media outlets adding new options to catch up with current trends.

“Some of them like Snapchat have always been video-based, but some of the older outlets are now embedding images much more in what they do,” he said. “Even Twitter, where originally the whole idea was that it’s just 140 characters, now has these embedded clips in the tweet where you get your 140 characters, and then underneath you see a picture of the news headline that you’re clipping.”

Margolin says while pictures and videos will likely continue to grow in popularity, people shouldn’t expect text to just go away.

“Texting will still be used, for example, to arrange logistics and meetings,” he said. “At the same time, sharing information like news has increasingly migrated towards sharing videos rather than newspaper articles. So if you want to read something that’s investigative, I think you’re still more likely to sit down and read something, put it down, and pick it back up later rather than pause a video for two days and then pick it back up again.”