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U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

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Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#551

Post by tripzilch »

j1elo wrote: post #403
peteretep wrote: post #334

By far the biggest factor that had me stopping checking Facebook, and indeed LinkedIn, is number of utterly fictitious notifications they generate. There was a time a few years back when that red dot made me drop everything to check FB, but these days it’ll be some completely bullshit message they’ve made a notification out of. Feels like they got greedy for my attention and killed the golden goose there. I check it…

I started like you, last year... then a couple days ago realized I hadn't checked it since mid January. And we're on March, that's a new record. I'm not in the "I'm leaving Facebook once and for all", actually I don't have that intention whatsoever, I am (was) a normal, active user. But it stopped being interesting. The kind of interaction Fb promotes is similar to twitter; in the first years I could see my friends s…

> Ironically I still write to share my thoughts on something, without photos or shocking videos, and it catcyes my friend's attention because of the "novelty" of writing something of my own instead of just sharing some link.

Except that, unlike the constant barrage of advertisement and "viral" content, your post will not even be shown to all your friends. And you don't get to know which ones will see it and which ones will have no idea you ever wrote anything.

I can see that kind of uncertainty putting people off from spending effort on writing nice personal posts & thoughts.

Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#552

Post by anticensor »

usrusr wrote: post #401
_cs2017_ wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Instagram doesn't heavily customize the ads or the news feed, then how does it extract any value from the data it collects?

Using the data to personalize ads elsewhere? Does Facebook operate a conventional ad network out on the web? (I could not name it, but I assume they do)

Instagram/FB data crossfeeding.

Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#553

Post by miker64 »

MR4D wrote: post #39
kojackst wrote: post #10

Note: personal opinion bellow It seems to me that the overall interest in Facebook is decreasing. The social network hasn't had any interesting feature added to it in the last couple of years. It's becoming boring and boring, so that's why I believe people are leaving. Still, Instagram and WhatsApp are running strong with barely no competition. We don't see any news about their user base decreasing and news channels…

I thought FB was integrating their messaging platforms? That seemed to make all the news rounds a month ago. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/technology/facebook-insta... [1] https://mashable.com/article/mark-zuckerberg-speaks-on-whats...

Integrating the _backend_ but from the user perspective they remain three distinct brands.

Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#554

Post by JohnClark1337 »

simonh wrote: post #430
peteretep wrote: post #334

By far the biggest factor that had me stopping checking Facebook, and indeed LinkedIn, is number of utterly fictitious notifications they generate. There was a time a few years back when that red dot made me drop everything to check FB, but these days it’ll be some completely bullshit message they’ve made a notification out of. Feels like they got greedy for my attention and killed the golden goose there. I check it…

It looks like facebook is engaged in a race to the bottom, against it’s own metrics. The easiest way to be engaged is to repost memes and fake news shock posts, so the most engaged users are meme posters and fake news trolls, so features that cater to meme posting and trolling get the most bang for buck, so they’re getting trapped in a cycle of circulating ever increasing torrents of drivel. My girls are 14 and 15 in…

It makes sense. Teenagers especially are searching for a place where they can have conversations with their friends without their parents around. I feel like this happens with social media a lot, the older people jump on so the kids leave because it's 'not fun' anymore.

Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#555

Post by gdubs »

peteretep wrote: post #334

By far the biggest factor that had me stopping checking Facebook, and indeed LinkedIn, is number of utterly fictitious notifications they generate. There was a time a few years back when that red dot made me drop everything to check FB, but these days it’ll be some completely bullshit message they’ve made a notification out of. Feels like they got greedy for my attention and killed the golden goose there. I check it…

Anecdata, but this was a big factor for me as well. Having joined somewhat early, they had me with the red badge like Pavlov with his bell. It was effective because of the variable reward. I logged in to see if there was a red badge. Now there’s always a red badge.

Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#557

Post by chimprich »

squirrelicus wrote: post #320
eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think focusing only on privacy is a mistake. Every single person I’ve talked to that has deleted Facebook has done so because it did not improve or enrich their lives whatsoever, in fact, they saw it as a net negative. Why do people feel the need to endlessly browse pictures and statements by loose connections? Not one person I’ve talked to has mentioned privacy. Yes, many of those people are on Instagram, but some…

I think FB and people in general dramatically overstate how many connections they'll lose if they quit Facebook. I quit Facebook 9 years ago, but haven't lost a connection I cared about. I did lose connection with real people that were a net negative in my life, though

Self-selecting sample. People who are confident they won't lose any friends they value through leaving FB are significantly more likely to drop the platform.

Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#558

Post by pjc50 »

chrisweekly wrote: post #496
pjc50 wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately google have helped me deal with facebook by dumping all their emails into a "social" tab which I rarely bother to look at.

Too bad Google Inbox has only a couple weeks left till it's retired. :(

This sounds like a stupid question, but it's a consequence of Google using a ridiculous product name: how do I tell if I'm using Inbox?

Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#559

Post by abecedarius »

j1elo wrote: post #403
peteretep wrote: post #334

By far the biggest factor that had me stopping checking Facebook, and indeed LinkedIn, is number of utterly fictitious notifications they generate. There was a time a few years back when that red dot made me drop everything to check FB, but these days it’ll be some completely bullshit message they’ve made a notification out of. Feels like they got greedy for my attention and killed the golden goose there. I check it…

I started like you, last year... then a couple days ago realized I hadn't checked it since mid January. And we're on March, that's a new record. I'm not in the "I'm leaving Facebook once and for all", actually I don't have that intention whatsoever, I am (was) a normal, active user. But it stopped being interesting. The kind of interaction Fb promotes is similar to twitter; in the first years I could see my friends s…

> I still write to share my thoughts on something... catches my friend's attention because of the "novelty" of writing something of my own

Note that it's up to Facebook whether your friends ever see your post in their feed. It can't catch their attention if they never see it. The feed algorithm is way too whimsical for me to want to rely on.

Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#560

Post by DanTheManPR »

simonsarris wrote: post #24
kojackst wrote: post #10

Note: personal opinion bellow It seems to me that the overall interest in Facebook is decreasing. The social network hasn't had any interesting feature added to it in the last couple of years. It's becoming boring and boring, so that's why I believe people are leaving. Still, Instagram and WhatsApp are running strong with barely no competition. We don't see any news about their user base decreasing and news channels…

> The social network hasn't had any interesting feature added to it in the last couple of years. I actually found some great rugs (owners did not know what they had!) and furniture on the FB marketplace. Much better finds than on craigslist, and easier to verify that the seller is a human.

I've been surprised by how good Facebook's local classified ads implementation is, I've been having better success with it than Craigslist.

It's an odd platform. They have a lot of great features for outreach and discovery of local events and groups of people, leveraged by the strong network effect. For contact with local groups of people with similar interests, and for planning events, for group communication, it is an effective tool and one that has enriched my life in substantial ways.

The one thing that I really hate is the front page feed. It was probably a great business decision on their part to emphasize microblogging, as it definitely increased engagement in the platform. It also turned everyone into memelords who just re-share funny cat pictures, pyramid schemes and incendiary political propaganda. I tried just filtering that out with the "see fewer posts like this", but I turns out that people just don't really post anything but image macros and articles anymore.

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