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More Users Are Shunning Facebook

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the we-hates-it dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Blake Snow writes that evidence suggests that a small but increasing number of users — at least in North America, where Facebook use is especially saturated — may be shunning the site with Facebook losing nearly 6 million users, falling from 155.2 million at the start of May to 149.4 million at the end of the month, the first time the US has lost users in the past year. Some users complain they're spending so much time on Facebook that they're short-changing the rest of their lives. 'I figured out that I wouldn't look back as an old man and wish I had spent more time on Facebook,' says David Cole, an IT manager from Boston, adding that he believes the popular social-networking site is a useful tool, but not a replacement for what he calls 'realbook' experiences. Kip Krieger, a college student from Virginia, says Facebook has become predictable. 'It's really gotten to a point where I know pretty much what my friends are going to post. They usually just write the same thing over and over again, and I am getting sick of that.' Still there are a lot more satisfied customers of Facebook than disgruntled ones, so are Facebook shunners a tiny minority or part of a growing trend? 'Having that connection with others is a very powerful thing,' says Toby Bushman who felt so much pressure that she decided to rejoin Facebook, and is glad she did. 'It makes me feel like I'm a part of something bigger and more grand than just my life as a stay-at-home mother.'"

10 of 411 comments (clear)

  1. Facebook is a good tool by cgeys · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seriously, what are they expecting? That their friends are there to entertain them 24/7? I don't expect MSN Messenger to entertain me all the time either, why would I expect Facebook to do so. It's a communication tool. I've found it really useful, especially since I'm living in different sides of the world every half a year and having friends, wife and a family in both. But I don't expect it to stop hunger or give world peace.

    1. Re:Facebook is a good tool by SMoynihan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Exactly. One doesn't blame the mail service because one has sent out invites for spammers to send spam letters.

      Facebook enables you to keep in touch with those you want to keep in touch with. If you are finding that those you friend send more trash than value, there is a simple answer:

      Don’t friend them.

      Seriously, if you don't want to spend time listening to drivel - you would avoid the drivelers - not cut off your ears (well, I hope not).

      Caveat emptor: If you end up with no friends, it is likely a statement on your standards, or your choice of acquaintances.

    2. Re:Facebook is a good tool by Xest · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well I don't think TFA is even true, this story has popped up elsewhere over the last few days, Slashdot is a bit late getting to it. Facebook themselves and another 3rd party have both said these numbers are bunk, and I think they're probably right.

      The same study suggests 1.5million Canadians also quit in a single month, that's 5% of Canada's entire population quitting Facebook in May. Now, to me that seems pretty odd, why so many, why May? For this to be realistic there'd almost certainly have to have been some good reason why so many chose that specific month to all leave together but I'm not aware of any event that would've caused such a mass exodus.

      I think Facebook might well be in slight decline in early adopting countries, but to the degree, with the numbers listed in TFA? Seems pretty unlikely, the numbers are just far too large for so many people to coincidentally all just pick one month to leave.

      The original articles on it suggested it was about privacy, but perhaps more realistically people haven't actually quit because of privacy, but have in fact boosted their privacy settings causing problems for whatever arbitrary method was used to measure these user counts.

      I couldn't really care what happens to Facebook personally, but I'm sick of seeing this story because frankly, it seems to almost certainly be completely and utterly full of shit- a classic attention whoring attempt using sensationalist tosh.

    3. Re:Facebook is a good tool by rwa2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Word... I got sucked in during the early days when there wasn't really much to do other than play Mafia Wars (I blame my wife, it was one of the few games she's ever gotten into). Was primarily interested in figuring out the game mechanic, as well as marveling at their psychological hacking techniques (pure genius... if only someone would apply this type of random reward & leveling system to education, we could work wonders, or churn out our own suicide bombers, or at least do something amazing). Anyway, after playing through some of our cultural heritage "campaigns" (Moscow and Bangkok), got stuck on some glitch and took that opportunity to quit cold turkey and never looked back.

      But then a lot of my childhood friends started popping up, and now that a lot of these "too cool for facebook" people are finally leaving, it's actually becoming kind of nice again.

    4. Re:Facebook is a good tool by obarthelemy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There's also the question of what Facebook counts as a user. I've got a bare page there, just so that friends of friends can track me. Never posted anything, barely go to visit friends' pages once a month when I'm bored, and when I get the facebook "please come baaaack" email.

      I find my life not *that* interesting that I want to make a "book" out of it. And the interesting parts, are, mostly, too private to entrust to facebook. The same seems to be true about my friends' lives, except they do post, and ave no qualms about private stuff, mostly.

      --
      The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
    5. Re:Facebook is a good tool by causality · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You actually captured it right there, the crux of the issue, the true appeal of Facebook:

      Facebook on the other hand lets you do that without getting too personal or intimate.

      Those things so many people are afraid of? Not because they are legitimately feared, but because most of them come from broken homes and a divorce culture and have some deep-seated trust issues and insecurities? Programming, in other words. You see this as a feature?

      We could collectively face our fears and learn how to interact with people on personal and intimate levels. What we'd discover is that dealing with others as actual human beings is far more satisfying, far less distant and hollow. Doing this requires being vulnerable and having good judgment, two things that scare so many.

      Or we can just make all human interaction as indirect and superficial as possible so nothing ever improves. What we'd discover is that we are so busy and have so much to keep up with yet actual acceptance and real understanding is so hard to find. Does that sound familiar? Doing this requires being shallow and mindlessly leaping on the current bandwagon because that's what everybody else is doing, nice and impersonal, focus on the crowd.

      You get to decide this on the individual level. So it's truly your call. Though, if people become any more alienated from one another, we may as well start addressing them with numbers instead of names. Who else can see this as a problem?

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
  2. Facebook + $ by geoffrobinson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Facebook is going to make money by exploiting and mining the data they have (and ads). Losing some customers is to be expected. The interesting thing is that they reached a saturation point already.

    But it doesn't seem like these folks are going to go to another social networking site.

    --
    Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
  3. users vs time by SemperUbi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I bet the loss in users is nothing compared to the proportion of users who keep their accounts but don't use the site, or view without ever posting. The site is an unpleasant minefield of tiny little areas you never want to click on. If users are declining when so many people have more than one account, I bet they're tanking more than they'll ever want to admit.

  4. Re:Facebook is fueled by narcissism. by instagib · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A written, physical letter is like a hand-made gift in these times. Between that and sites like Facebook there is still E-Mail - faster and more practical than the first, but much more personal (and hopefully with thoughtful content) than the latter. E-Mail is my favourite tool since 1991 to keep in contact with people I care about.

  5. Facebook, meet Myspace, meet Geocities by Fractal+Dice · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Facebook is following the same trajectory of all social networking sites from the dawn of the Internet ... people pile in, then eventually take a harder look at the product they are becoming and start to pull away, starting a long bleeding decline. What's astonishing is that once again, a company appeared which honestly seemed to think they were different, that they weren't subject to the same pattern of free-growth and decay-on-monitization.