Facebook Users Are Sharing Less and It's a Big Problem (fortune.com)

Reader Colin Castro writes: Facebook is starting to see decline in original posts and people sharing their thoughts. "Facebook's decline in personal updates reflects a common growing pain for online communities. What starts out as a special and intimate place to share things grows into a big, impersonal, and professional platform ." The author points out one of the reasons why: "They know that, unlike in Facebook's earlier days, their status updates can now be seen by distant relatives, high school classmates, and co-workers -- so they don't share anything too personal."

Comments

Re:It's more than just "I don't want grammy to see

[nine-times]

I agree.

I'm really just speaking for myself here. I can only speculate that others might have had similar experiences to me, but I definitely don't know what people are doing on Facebook or why.

Essentially, I signed up for Facebook because it was a good way of keeping in touch with peers-- old college friends and current friends. Relatively close friends. I posted whatever I wanted, and didn't think much about it. Then I friended some people who weren't really friends, but more like acquaintances. It didn't change things much. Some of my cousins friended me, but only ones that were roughly my age, so that was fine. Then-- I remember this one event pretty clearly-- one of my aunts friended me. I was really torn. On the one hand, I did not want her to invade the my Facebook social circle. I would have to watch what I said to a much larger degree. Still, I wanted to keep in touch with her, and I couldn't think of a polite way to say "no", so I accepted her friend request.

After that, my parents friended me. Then coworkers. Then bosses-- and by that time, I was careful enough about what I posted that I just accepted without thinking too much about it. I was already careful not to post anything too controversial or inappropriate, so I wasn't too afraid of my boss seeing it. And I was kind of friendly with my boss, so... whatever.

Still, I posted things on Facebook. Nothing very personal. I posted photos that I would be ok with being public. I posted pretty inoffensive thoughts that I thought might be interesting or funny. But then something else started to happen. I don't know if it was because of a cultural shift or just that my network his some sort of critical mass of different viewpoints, but I couldn't post anything without someone getting butthurt. I'd post a comment about Net Neutrality, and one of my conservative uncles would start spamming me with comments about how Net Neutrality was a communist plot to destroy businesses. I'd post something about a video game, and I'd get responses relating to GamerGate. I'd mention that I'd gotten a new iPad and one person bring up the problems in Apple's Chinese factories, and another person would comment, "Apple is for fags. Android 4ever."

I'm exaggerating a little, but not that much. Even innocuous comments had random people coming out of the woodwork to make nasty comments. It wasn't just liberal people or conservative people, Democrats or Republicans, friends from the city or redneck friends. There wasn't really a common thread. Everyone had just gotten much more serious, much less unwilling to read comments in a way that gave you the benefit of the doubt, and much more hostile. Sometimes they were my friends, sometimes friends of friends, and sometimes people I didn't know at all (e.g. commenting on one of my friend's posts, someone I didn't know would yell at me for something or other). The whole thing became so unpleasant that I just stopped. I didn't see the value in posting.

None too soon.

[choke]

I have always operated on Facebook as a pseudonym, and recently they blocked my account for not having any way to uniquely legally identify me. I have to admit that I am happy with that outcome, and the fact that they won't permit me onto their service without being able to identify me certainly cements my resolve to remain that way.