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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

#231

Post by pombrand »

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…

Exactly right. I've gotten around this by using "Facebook Purity" a chrome extension which let's me filter what is shown on the news feed in detail: I only really want to see posts and photos the friends I haven't hidden from the news feed post - not their likes, the events they're going to etc. This is addition to "hide trending" and ublock makes facebook a bit broken but overall usable, not really worth checking in more than once a week though.

Instagram works better for getting a feel for your friends, especially with the temporary "snaps" people post and actually fun creative overlays.

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

#232

Post by relyio »

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…

I had the exact same issues with Quora. Both websites I used to hang out frequently. Facebook to see what was going on within my social circles (not content consumption) and Quora to learn new things from the people I followed.

Both websites became unbearingly bad after they updated their feed algorithm. To this day, this remains for me the quintessential case of bad product thinking meets over-engineering.

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

#233

Post by toomanybeersies »

mysterypie wrote: post #209
beamatronic wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. Most folks I know address the colleague issue with a "no current coworkers" policy. (Not to imply you should immediately add newly-former coworkers).

> a "no current coworkers" policy So if someone asks, Can you add me on FB? Would you reply?: No, I have a no current coworkers policy. Is there a way to do this without hurting people's feelings?

That's exactly how you do it without hurting their feelings. It's an impersonal blanket rule.

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

#234

Post by evilduck »

jonmb wrote: post #178
jliptzin wrote: post #32

Started using FB in 2004 when there were barely a few hundred thousand users. It was great as a college freshman going to a new place not knowing anyone and needing to make friends fast and keep up. In my 30s now and have almost completely stopped using facebook. I check in once every few months, usually when I need to sign in because someone messages me there instead of email. It's actually stunning to me that Faceb…

> I check in once every few months, usually when I need to sign in because someone messages me there instead of email. From what I've been hearing from internal teams, Facebook is hoping to take some of email's pie. I expect to see them pushing more people to use Facebook Messenger in place of email. And they're working on new types of ads that interface more with the Messenger. E.g. start a conversation with a compa…

Sounds like 2010 when they gave everyone an @facebook.com email address to try to... take some of email's pie.

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

#235

Post by geoelectric »

arwhatever wrote: post #113
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…

Wave 3: ruthlessly trim your friends list to make feed less annoying Wave 4: still too annoying, deletes Facebook account altogether.

I kept the friends list, at least for people with whom I was OK sharing contact info.

I did, however, unfollow around 500 people or so, which shrunk my feed to only a small number of people whose opinion I actually care to read. FB really should make the unfollow option more obvious, because it largely solves the feed noise issue.

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

#236

Post by driverdan »

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,…

Instagram is so frustrating. I want to see all the stuff in my feed but they actively make it hard to do so.

All I want is a complete chronological feed of media. No terrible sorting algo, no held back stuff to show me later, no suggestions.

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

#237

Post by Splendor »

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 here. And now they're running Instagram in the same way.

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

#238

Post by askafriend »

xj9 wrote: post #213
askafriend wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> invite them to join then? I'm sorry but I'm not going to spend my personal time convincing hundreds of my contacts to move over to a random service called Mastodon. I've got better things to do with my life. I'm going to use Facebook as a tool and move on - as I'm sure the less vocal majority are doing. There is a philosophical viewpoint and a practical one. I choose the practical one.

> hundreds lmao ok like this is an all or nothing situation. my response should have been prefixed with if you care about promoting alternative networks you could... (which is what OP was asking for), mastodon is the largest one right now. i think SSB has a brighter future, but it isn't production ready quite yet. "practical" as in, what you think is best. it is practical for me to invite people to promote decentrali…

I completely get your perspective but you also made my point for me.

I'm not looking to promote any social network or philosophy. I'm simply looking for a modern tool with which I can contact my friends and family that live in different states and countries in an efficient way. That's it. And I'd bet this is also the case for a majority of people.

I get that if you want to start a niche community or small groups for special interests, there are tons of other ways to organize. For example, Discord for gaming.

But at the end of the day, even those who use Discord a lot and are heavily involved in gaming communities will still have a Facebook so they can connect with the random person they just met at a party, or send photos to their grandma.

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

#239

Post by sosuke »

whataretensors wrote: post #147
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.

Maybe like https://steemit.com/?

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

#240

Post by ZenoArrow »

ceejayoz wrote: post #216
ZenoArrow wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "and is happening!) to Instagram" That's not what the article suggests. If you have some stats to suggest the volume of Instagram users is already on the decline, by all means post it.

The same suckification cycle is happening (increasingly intrusive ads, algorithm tweaks, "here's a pic from someone you don't follow", etc.). The user decline happens later on in that cycle.

In other words, they're at the "will happen" stage rather than the "is happening" stage (bearing in mind we're talking about their user base).
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