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Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

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Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#141

Post by freehunter »

g09980 wrote: post #88
jasode wrote: post #15

Facebook suffered from 2 waves of "Eternal September" [0]: wave 1: the addition of everybody outside your immediate friends and close family. You get the goofy uncle, the distant high school acquaintances, and all the work acquaintances from every previous job that submitted a "friend request" that you didn't reject out of politeness. The newsfeed gets polluted by nonsense such as forwarded memes, politics, and other…

What did for me was the influx of the "you won't believe what happens next, this video will make you cry" shares, and then political diatribes (you may call it virtue signaling) by well-meaning friends. Unfriended many people to cull my list to around 100 and FB has been more palatable since.

I instituted this policy back in the days where people would constantly invite you to play their stupid games, they had to invite you or they wouldn't be able to play. But anyone who invited me to Farmville or Mafia Wars or any nonsense got unfriended. If you wanted me back, you'd have to start to uncheck my name when you clicked "invite".

I also do a soft sort of "if I haven't talked to you in three months" rule to get rid of stale contacts. It's not LinkedIn, I don't need people for future reference. If I haven't talked to them in three months and they aren't someone incredibly important to me, they're gone.

I agree Facebook is awful and they're making it worse every day, but a lot of the problems people have with it are self-made. I don't get people posting awful political opinions because I don't follow anyone who does that. I don't get spammed with memes because I don't follow anyone who does that. I don't see most of the ads because I have an ad blocker. I don't see people I don't know because I unfriend them. I don't see businesses I don't care about because I don't follow businesses I don't care about.

The only problem I have with Facebook as a consumer of Facebook is not seeing things from people I want to see things from. But I rarely see things I don't want to see, because Facebook gives you all the tools you need to stop seeing that kind of stuff.

Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#142

Post by Crespyl »

wetpaws wrote: post #106
NickBusey wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like Mastodon? https://mastodon.social/about

How is this different from twitter aside from decentralized part?

Open source and open standards are the other big draws. Otherwise it does seem to be closely based on twitter style interaction.

Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#143

Post by freehunter »

mschuster91 wrote: post #128
graeme wrote: post #120

Facebook should watch out with Instagram. It feels considerably more draining now than it used to. There are messages, stories, suggested posts everywhere. On the search feed I often end up in auto-scrolling videos. These increase engagement and metrics. But, they produce an unwanted feeling of compulsion where instagram didn't before. I've uninstalled the app for a bit. I never felt like that about Instagram before,…

> I don't yet have that feeling about snapchat, though the new design is annoying. I tried to try it out but even on a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 when it came out it was unbearably slow and even not using the camera drained the battery (IIRC it is/was because Snapchat kept the camera on during the time the app was open in order to avoid the 1-2s lag of camera setup). I can't understand why and how kids and young people lik…

>I can't understand why and how kids and young people like it so much.

That. That right there is why they like it so much. Because you're not on it. Their parents and grandparents are on Facebook, but those parents and grandparents can't figure out how to use Snapchat or don't see why kids like it, and that is exactly why kids like it.

It's the "adults can't see why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch" or "Trix is for kids" of their generation.

Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#144

Post by freehunter »

graeme wrote: post #120

Facebook should watch out with Instagram. It feels considerably more draining now than it used to. There are messages, stories, suggested posts everywhere. On the search feed I often end up in auto-scrolling videos. These increase engagement and metrics. But, they produce an unwanted feeling of compulsion where instagram didn't before. I've uninstalled the app for a bit. I never felt like that about Instagram before,…

I have the same experience with Instagram. It used to show me interesting stuff, now it shows me interesting stuff from a few days ago. And a few days from right now, it will show me the interesting stuff that was posted right now. No amount of checking Instagram seems to make the delay go away. Every time I log in, the top of my feed is from 2 days ago. And I scroll for miles and still seeing days-old content that I didn't see days ago.

Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#145

Post by RafiqM »

Time and time again I see the complaint that people want a 'Most Recent' news feed instead of algorithm-chosen and that's why they don't use Facebook anymore.

This type of feed would be unusable for the vast majority of users.

Why? Because of Page Likes.

I struggled to find quantitative data on this, but I myself like over 600 pages, and I'm selective. Many people like over 1000.

With a Most Recent news feed, those hundreds of pages would be posting multiple times a day vying for your attention.

100% reach, organic and zero cost? It's a marketers dream come true.

Add to that, I really only want to see posts from maybe 20% of my 'friends', and I believe this to be representative of the average user.

"Curate your friends list and page likes!", I hear you say.

No. I'm not bothered unliking hundreds of pages and neither is the average user. Not to mention, I did chose to hear from these pages for a reason. For friends, it's mostly socially unacceptable to unfriend people even if you haven't talked to them for a few years.

Hence, the algorithm that does the curating for me, because there's really no other way around it.

ps. I'm taking some liberties here speaking for an average user. I welcome data that shows I'm incorrect. The best I could find was from 2013 so is irrelevant.

Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#146

Post by [deleted] »

freehunter wrote: post #141
g09980 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did for me was the influx of the "you won't believe what happens next, this video will make you cry" shares, and then political diatribes (you may call it virtue signaling) by well-meaning friends. Unfriended many people to cull my list to around 100 and FB has been more palatable since.

I instituted this policy back in the days where people would constantly invite you to play their stupid games, they had to invite you or they wouldn't be able to play. But anyone who invited me to Farmville or Mafia Wars or any nonsense got unfriended. If you wanted me back, you'd have to start to uncheck my name when you clicked "invite". I also do a soft sort of "if I haven't talked to you in three months" rule to…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#147

Post by whataretensors »

f055 wrote: post #10

I'm 34 and Facebook lost me as well. I can't remove my account as I need to use as a developer, but I unfollowed everyone and my newsfeed is empty. It's a bliss. Funny thing is, it's all Facebook's fault. Back in the days, the service was simply brilliant to see what's going on at your friends, at home and abroad. But when Facebook introduced the algorithmic newsfeed, the usefulness ended. I could no longer see all t…

Same thing. Removed my facebook now I'm looking for a cryptocurrency backed one that rewards people for contributions.

Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#148

Post by makecheck »

jasode wrote: post #15

Facebook suffered from 2 waves of "Eternal September" [0]: wave 1: the addition of everybody outside your immediate friends and close family. You get the goofy uncle, the distant high school acquaintances, and all the work acquaintances from every previous job that submitted a "friend request" that you didn't reject out of politeness. The newsfeed gets polluted by nonsense such as forwarded memes, politics, and other…

I wish the “of course ads are needed” weren’t true. I am waiting for the service that charges me $1/month so that I can demand zero garbage: no unwanted sharing, no ads, no spying; just a useful service for storing photos and updating friends and inviting people to events.

Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#149

Post by code_duck »

adjkant wrote: post #126
dtech wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatsapp, Instagram and Snapchat are already far in the process of obsoleting Facebook and scooping up leaving and young users. 2 of those 3 are now owned by Facebook

And how long until Instagram suffers the same fate?

They have already been decreasing of the charm of Instagram by adding more and more features… Basically, turning it into Facebook. In the large circle of artists that I work in, a slogan that is being oft repeated lately is “make Instagram chronological again”. I do use Facebook, but I don’t post much content as when I do, it’s almost useless because they don’t show my content to anyone. Instagram is increasingly the same way.

Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#150

Post by code_duck »

dtech wrote: post #89
dvt wrote: post #75

FB seems to be on its deathbed. It's obvious that it's completely lost on young users (18-25), and even young adults (25-35) are just about done with it. Serious question: is now the time to disrupt? What would the "next" MySpace/FB look like? Ignoring techie "features" like decentralization, what do you think users actually care about?

Whatsapp, Instagram and Snapchat are already far in the process of obsoleting Facebook and scooping up leaving and young users. 2 of those 3 are now owned by Facebook

Also, Snapchat has been neutered by Facebook closely duplicating their features in Instagram.
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