Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 593 posts

Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#201

Post by lovich »

kposehn wrote: post #196

> Pew surveyed more than 3,400 U.S. Facebook users in May and June, and found that a whopping 44 percent of those ages 18 to 29 say they've deleted the app from their phone in the last year. Some of them may have reinstalled it later. Yet the total user base in the US is something over 100mm - how would you possibly consider 3,400 people be indicative of an entire demographic? Edit: Yes, I'm aware of statistics and h…

Statistics can be used to infer trends from a much larger population than surveyed as long as you take steps to ensure a random group of people from the main population are surveyed

Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#202

Post by weberc2 »

cronix wrote: post #197
weberc2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet the Facebook employees who pushed to buy Instagram are feeling pretty justified right about now. But still, I'm not sure if Instagram can be monetized to the same degree as Facebook was in the last decade, especially as they continue to wreck their brand with privacy abuses (note that I'm not a privacy hawk).

You mean to ruin a secondary platform? I've all but stopped using Instagram for the same reason I've all but stopped using FB... there are just too many ads to scroll past to see what I'm actually there to see (the people I'm friends with/following). Every other post now seems to be an ad/sponsored post. Both platforms have gone overboard to the point that I only visit maybe once/week now instead of daily. I also don…

I'm not arguing that they're doing good things with it; I'm not an Instagram user. I was only observing that Instagram's rise is conveniently (for Facebook) occurring during Facebook's fall.

Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#203

Post by Aelius »

Zelphyr wrote: post #148
_sdfo wrote: post #96

There's just no way I could keep myself up to date with local events without Facebook. I live in a post-soviet country so Snapchat and Instagram are considered pretty niche here so every social event is always documented on Facebook. I also hold a monthly gamedev meetup, which would be utterly impossible without Facebook. The attendance has grown from 5 to 30 people in a few months and is now helping jump start the g…

It is evil but it's really not as necessary as you think. I'm known to ALL of my friends and ALL of my family as someone who will not ever be on Facebook. You know what they do? They call me. Or text me. Or email me. And I never miss out on events. Even people I rarely interact with know how to, and do reach me outside of Facebook. People make such a big deal out of how impossible their social lives would be without…

Same, however in my experience people like us will be left out of the loop when there are last minute changes to the event. Just last week I nearly missed a weekly public activity: the venue changed last minute and they only posted about that on Facebook. If a friend hadn't told me, I'd have gone to the usual place.

I have an amusing anecdote about being the one friend without Facebook.

Someone told me about a birthday party- they told me where it was and what time to be there. They did not tell me that our group was not actually invited and our arrival would be a surprise.

The rest of the group was half an hour late. I was not. They all wanted to arrive together and were delayed, but no one filled me in on the new time.

And that's the story about how I awkwardly attended a party for 30min where I knew no one but the birthday woman and it was obvious to everyone that I was not actually invited.

All was well once my friends arrived. Still, what a nightmare that was.

Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#204

Post by sgtAtom »

I feel like Facebook has been squeezing their users for revenue more and more over the past couple years, and the result is a terrible user experience. At this point, I'm lucky if 10% of the content I see on Facebook is content I actually care about. Young users have a lot less time and history invested in Facebook, so it's no surprise to me that they're leaving.

Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#205

Post by wnmurphy »

aeternus wrote: post #158
rigged-system wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to add one more thing. The ads weren't just for a travel destination. It would be something totally out of character for us like "Let's build a tree house and rent in out on AirBnb" and there would be ads for renting out tree houses.

They weren't analyzing voice, but what they are doing gets them just as much or more data. - They watch how quickly you scroll through the news feed at what you pause on, even briefly. - They have ad deals with many of the sites you probably visit so can determine many of your search terms and interests even if you didn't search those things through Facebook itself. - They have your friend & family graph and Facebook…

Shit like THIS is why "fuck Facebook."

Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#206

Post by lostgame »

izzydata wrote: post #19

The majority of the feed was what looked like irrelevant spam, ads or political arguing. It has essentially no positive value anymore so I deleted my account.

I feel like the Facebook timeline has just become a dumping ground for rehashed memes, vaguebooking, unchecked 'facts', unfounded opinions, and, worse, blatantly false information that causes people to lash out to their so-called 'friends' when they're presented a different perspective.

Not only that, but I've actually experienced first-hand, and witnessed many of my friends experiencing depression and anxiety from the constant scrolling. The 'desire to be seen or heard' factor really plays in to an overall sense of toxicity and negativity that there have actually been a number of psychology studies on.

Overall, I find, contrary to say, HN, which I still spend too much time on (but mostly when I'm bored at work, ha), there is no bar of quality on Facebook. It's a cesspool of humanity's worst sides, especially if you consider the privacy violations of the medium itself.

In fact, it's actually becoming a faster and faster race to the bottom. (Can we all remember this year of 2018 started with 'Tide Pods'?)

Even Reddit has some quality control.

Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#207

Post by djstein »

lostgame wrote: post #191
samfisher83 wrote: post #52

They are just going from FB to Instagram: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/22/teens-abandoning-facebook-st... FB can shift its model to becoming like priceline. Just try to buy up all the social networks. For example most travel site you probably use are owned by priceline. The same way Facebook could maybe buy up other social networks.

Does anyone else find it super-strange that, as what is consistently one of the top ten iOS applications in the App Store, and a massive company now purchased by an even more massive company, Instagram can not be bothered to produce a native iPad app? It's been 8 years (the first iPad was released in 2010) and the platform has certainly proven itself not to be a fad. Instagram looks like an actual joke on my iPad Pro…

I believe they have focused on their web app for this. Turning it into a home screen based web application has been far better. Not as great as a native app, but better than the iPhone one scaled up!

Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#208

Post by illegalsmile »

rootusrootus wrote: post #126
bdamm wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice that phone numbers are so stable these days.

I wonder how long that will continue. I get so many spam calls every day (about a dozen now) that I am looking towards a future where I don't have a POTS number.

The spam phone calls and especially texts have dramatically risen over the last two years. Any idea why this is?

Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#209

Post by softawre »

mulmen wrote: post #133
rigged-system wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to add one more thing. The ads weren't just for a travel destination. It would be something totally out of character for us like "Let's build a tree house and rent in out on AirBnb" and there would be ads for renting out tree houses.

Sure but did you have any other interaction with the internet about these topics? Did you search Google for tree house building codes? Did you search Pinterest or Instagram for ideas? I have heard this anecdote many times but I don't believe Facebook is actually recording everything we say. Mostly because I don't think our phones have that kind of battery life. I do think they have data on essentially everything you…

Another common one is credit card data. If you buy a special razor at Kroger, expect to see ads about mangroomer on FB.

Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#210

Post by cknoxrun »

mulmen wrote: post #133
rigged-system wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to add one more thing. The ads weren't just for a travel destination. It would be something totally out of character for us like "Let's build a tree house and rent in out on AirBnb" and there would be ads for renting out tree houses.

Sure but did you have any other interaction with the internet about these topics? Did you search Google for tree house building codes? Did you search Pinterest or Instagram for ideas? I have heard this anecdote many times but I don't believe Facebook is actually recording everything we say. Mostly because I don't think our phones have that kind of battery life. I do think they have data on essentially everything you…

I wonder if it is also possible they associate you with searches your friends have done after being in the same location? So if you chat about going to Bali with your friends or co-workers, and one of them searches for Bali flights, they then display Bali ads to the entire group.
Post reply on HN