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More Users Are Shunning Facebook
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.'"
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.
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.
Sure, having a "life" is all well and good for my friends. But have they paused for even a moment and thought about what will become of my farm?!?!?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Seems to be chock full of stalkers, spammers and generally maladjusted people talking to themselves via status updates
Why are these people in your friends list in the first place? The whole internet is full of stalkers, spammers and generally maladjusted people. The point of Facebook (or any other messenger service) is that you only white-list those you want to associate with.
which is totally what she said
And I have not looked back... For me, I got tired of changing my privacy options all the time to keep what I wanted private, private. They kept changing them so that I would have to reconfigure things, for the same level of privacy.
My blog on how to leave Facebook and keep some of the interesting information: bryanquigley.com/uncategorized/leaving-facebook
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.
IMHO, the people who are leaving Facebook have realized that it's not just another blog where they can post semi-anonymous inflammatory political rhetoric. Their Facebook friends will come down on their bogus opinions hard and people don't like to be told that they're full of sh*t by people they know. Just one aspect, IMHO. For me, living far away from most of my long-time friends, it's nice to be able to passively catch up with them. If you disagree with me, then you are a heartless bastard. ;-)
You know what, you're damn right. I am associating with some very strange people.
My young daughter and her friends have recently left Facebook. The reason? Because everyone's parents now use Facebook.
Those skilled in the internet have known Facebook will not last forever. The media, having hyped the living shite out of it for the past few years, are about to jump on the "Facebook is a sinking ship" hype, and I'm happy to help.
Good riddance to bad websites.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
I have personally not dropped my facebook page but I visit a lot less often now. I've closed my blog page and I have returned to writing letters. I'm an IT admin so its a little difficult relearning to "write" with a pen so that others can read it. But a lot of my friends world-wide like the letter with the clipped photos and other things I send. There is something more personable in a letter that someone actually wrote and handled. i also got a custom wax stamp so i send them out with wax seals like they used to 100 years ago.
Turn off the TV, shut down the computer, and go interact with other people, or go do something with your hands. You'd be amazed how many calories you burn by puttering around in the garage or in the yard, or by meeting friends out in public. You should especially do this kind of stuff in the years between 18 and getting married. Don't worry about updating your status, use that smartphone to assist being out and about, not as a replacement for it.
Life is short, don't squander it.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I'm not going to say this is the start of the end, but it certainly shows that people are no longer "excited" about the social network world.
People are noticing real-world consequences to the privacy issues, reducing the amount of interesting stuff that people will post. I've run into employer issues, I've had relatives with relationship issues, and I've read enough about legal issues to be wary about what I post. Add in the number of businesses embracing Facebook, and you start to see why "social networks" have reached a saturation point.
It still has its uses. It is more personal than email (great for keeping your family updated on life events). It is easier to control reoccurring events, such as birthday parties and pick-up games in the park. It is also easier to ignore people on Facebook than through email. I will continue to use it about as regularly as I use my email, but that doesn't mean I like it.
I dumped Facebook a few months back, because I got tired of having to constantly tweak the privacy settings, and I was drowning in Zynga spam from other users.
Yes just one of the small $6.5 Billion people who aren't on Facebook. Quite the minority you are.
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.
As far as I am concerned, this has more to do with how Facebook (and others) are used against people in the work place, at school, by insurance companies, by lawyers and even during pre-employment screenings. As it has been legally supported by court rulings that it's okay to use that information for those purposes (despite the fact that it hinders certain constitutional amendments, the separation of personal and professional life and more), it comes down to the users having two choices: participate or not participate.
I saw this LONG long ago and I decided not to participate as the best option. I think others are beginning to see it as well.
If you aren't rising, you are falling. The public loves a good riches to rags story just as much as they like a rags to riches. So total active users dropped 6 million out of 700 million total. Big deal. In terms of a subscriber base it doesn't really matter. There are still tons of accounts ripe for data mining. Maybe those accounts were false accounts. Maybe they were expired accounts from people who got their old Facebook account hacked and created a brand new one and the old one finally lapsed. Maybe some people died.
Maybe FB is plateauing. It happens to every huge company, they have stop growing sometime. Maybe they drop 1% and their gains/losses level off. But thanks to the 24 hr news cycle we have "oh noes! FB is ded because a few people went outside! Film at 11!"
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
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...
This is the other side of the bar that the Turing Test seeks to hurdle. Many real human beings, it turns out, after a while, become highly predictable.
What would Turing say about this phenomenon?
i got banned from facebook without any explanation whatsoever. They must think they're pretty fucking special they can go around doing that to people. Well f-them - my life improved dramatically after that due to actually attending to my life as opposed to wasting time on their garbage so they actually did me a favour.
Having my parents join completely changed my use of FB, and to some extent real life. as now every possible drunken shenanigans picture might get a comment from my mom.
Now I can have my overbearing over protective mom follow me and judge me all the time? Brilliant!
Oh and don't dare not friend them, or unfriendly them. That just makes it worse.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Eventually all of these sites will lose users. Why? Because eventually people wake up and realize what a time waster it is. Let's face it, do people really think you're that interesting such that they will follow your exploits day in and day out? It's all a fad and that's what all the paparazzi shows are for on TV for people who are truly interesting, or well at least have "celebrity" status. For those who need their constant Kim Kardashian fix, they can get it daily and there will be media outlets that will supply that need. Can you ever get enough of Kim Kardashian? That's another topic.
Yes, you can use the truly social aspects of these sites to reconnect with old friends and catch up. But in reality, after a while, you then realize suddenly that there was a reason you lost touch with those old friends. They're boring or they pissed you off a long time ago or they stole your significant other from you. Unfortunately for you, now you've "friended" them. This creates a new social paradox. How do you unfriend a friend and still be able to look them in the eye at that high school reunion? You can't but you can Tweet Dr. Phil and ask him what you should do.
Facebook will eventually dwindle down to a smaller subset of what it is today. People will give up on the Farmvilles and will turn on to other things. Like "Angry Birds" which I predict will have a $200B IPO next year because we value the latest fad, not what's substantial.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Nope. Nothing to do with any of those.
"...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."
And there's the root of the problem right there, what I like to call "Hollywood Syndrome". Sure, there's probably another word or term for it, but it basically stems around the popularity of such things as Facebook, Twitter, Warcraft, MMORPGs in general
Most of us just call it "socializing" and being part of a "community"
As someone who never had a MySpace or FaceBook account, I'll be the first to say that I should have.
Back in college when MySpace was huge, I was constantly pestered by friends for my "MySpace", so that they could friend me. My canned response was, "I don't use MySpace, but if you want to find me you can just type my name into Google and my professional website is the first result." Well, guess who didn't get invited to the cool parties because the invite went out over MySpace? It still happens today with friends who use Facebook to send out invitations. You can tell people to use your e-mail, text you, or call you, but it's just not something that people think to do anymore. Facebook has become the preferred means of communication. I've even had a relationship fail out of the gate because the girl preferred Facebook flirting and I refused to indulge her. Just last week I got a call on my office phone from some friends from long ago who'd been looking for me. Since I wasn't on Facebook, it literally didn't occur to them that they could try entering my name in Google and find my contact information at the first result. Instead, by some circuitous route they managed to find a phone number I didn't even know--my office phone--since I just use my cell phone!
So, here's the moral of the story. To the masses, Facebook is the new phone book, post office and phone. If your address and number is unlisted, you may as well be living in a shack in the vast wilderness, because unless they're exceptionally close to you then your friends aren't going to find you, aren't going to contact you, and might even find it easier not to be your friend at all.
Somehow, I still decline to use Facebook. I'd rather go through my list of contacts on a rotating basis and send them a text to let them know that I still care. It is kind of funny to meet friends of my girlfriend and have them say, "Oh, you're that guy that's not on Facebook!"
So, maybe not being on Facebook makes me more memorable after all.
During the workday I need to work on projects, answer e-mails and such. I'll have downtime for social networking here and there but not much. When I get home, I need to make dinner, get the kids ready for bed and then do various things (household chores, blog posts, watch TV shows I like watching, spend time with my wife, etc). I can do social networking here as well, but my time is limited. I already have a blog and am on Twitter. Going on Facebook would only spread me too thin. If I want to post something for the world to see that's longer than 140 characters, I'll blog about it. If I want to let people know about it privately, I'll e-mail them. There are only maybe a handful of people from my past that I wonder "what are they doing now." The others? Don't really care. As it stands, I'm constantly trying to rise above my past. I don't need people from my past constantly popping into my present life and judging my current life with comments or "likes".
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I've been shunning Facebook since before it was cool to shun Facebook. Am I cool now?
your gravity fails and negativity don't pull you through