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Facebook Is Losing Teens

forbes.com

61–70 of 98 posts

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#61
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook was never "cool," even when I first got Facebook back in 9th grade, when I was around 14 years old At the time Facebook was cool, it wasn't open to 14 year olds...

A bit blunt but, yeah. Facebook was arguably a lot more cool when you at least needed an .edu address to get on. (Or a bit before or after that point depending on your perspective.)

And a very specific .edu or .ac.uk at that. It's easy to be cool when you are leveraging exclusivity already.

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think the value increases as you get older (through college-aged), as your social networks fragment and split off. When I was in high school my FB friends were mostly people I saw day-to-day anyway, so FB merely consisted of keeping in the loop with the social activity of people I would see in person every day anyway. So I can totally understand why once-core FB activities are moving to Instagram/Snapchat/…

I just don't share this vision. You either have -real- friends, or you have acquaintances. Facebook is not for real friends. If people are your friends and want to stay in contact with you, they will - like they did before Facebook existed.

You might as well argue that a telephone isn't for "real" friends that you see in the street every day. The truth of a modern lifestyle is that people are very mobile. I can remember losing touch with people for a few years back when your email address was from your college or employer, two moves and you were gone - until the world agreed that we'd use Facebook as a self-updating address book.

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#63
post #53
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't you noticed it yourself, that especially younger people seem to be engaged with their mobile devices whenever there is a few minute idle time, when e.g. waiting for a class to start. Quiet hallway, 10-20 people, all but a few with their noses in their phones.

Of course, I've noticed. But is it a bad thing? Reality is pretty dull for 90% of humans.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#64
post #53
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't you noticed it yourself, that especially younger people seem to be engaged with their mobile devices whenever there is a few minute idle time, when e.g. waiting for a class to start. Quiet hallway, 10-20 people, all but a few with their noses in their phones.

Of course, I've noticed. But is it a bad thing? Reality is pretty dull for 90% of humans.

It is bad in the sense that it is an alternative, and growingly a replacement, to using our biological escape from Reality - the Imagination.

Actively engaging the Imagination has a much greater potential to cross over into Reality and affect it in such a way that escape is no longer necessary. Escaping from Reality by relying on external input feeds and output sinks only passively engages the Imagination and does not produce the same internal Imagination-Reality-Manifestation loop.

As with most things, a healthy balance of both internal and external escapism is probably the best. Calvin and Hobbes explains this the best.

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#66
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would make sense if they actually offered much utility. Even Google+ has them beat when it comes to compelling features.

Err, what? If I closed my facebook account I would lose virtually all contact I have with every friend I have made other than the person I live with and a few people who live near me and my family. How the hell is that not utility?

This is how it used to be. You graduate high school/college and you loose touch with the people who were unimportant, keep in touch with the people who are important.

I don't really see this as a problem. The people who you wouldn't loose contact with are the ones worth focusing on, because it means you actually care about them.

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"a social utility, the lack of which meant losing touch with friends, not being invited to events, and generally missing out on a large amount of social interaction" And according to the article (and my own, admittedly limited, survey of teens and "tweens" I know), that utility value doesn't exist anymore. Now, you could argue that the thing they are moving to is also facebook under a different name (instagram)... bu…

I actually think the value increases as you get older (through college-aged), as your social networks fragment and split off. When I was in high school my FB friends were mostly people I saw day-to-day anyway, so FB merely consisted of keeping in the loop with the social activity of people I would see in person every day anyway. So I can totally understand why once-core FB activities are moving to Instagram/Snapchat/…

exactly! Fb is useful when you have a long list of friends from different places and phases of your life, like HS, college, summer camps, events, trips, etc. You cant keep in touch with them all the time on chat apps, simply because you dont always have something to talk about. Its nota a "real" friend or not issue, it's simply a matter of not having things to talk about. But on FB, you can come across some interesting post by that person, and connect over that.

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#68
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, I've noticed. But is it a bad thing? Reality is pretty dull for 90% of humans.

It is bad in the sense that it is an alternative, and growingly a replacement, to using our biological escape from Reality - the Imagination. Actively engaging the Imagination has a much greater potential to cross over into Reality and affect it in such a way that escape is no longer necessary. Escaping from Reality by relying on external input feeds and output sinks only passively engages the Imagination and does no…

Right. First someone says that isolation is good for adolescencents citing a comedian, you are arguing that mix of external and internal escapism is probably the best as the comic explains. I am not a subject matter expert, but comics are not an authority on psychology for me.

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think the value increases as you get older (through college-aged), as your social networks fragment and split off. When I was in high school my FB friends were mostly people I saw day-to-day anyway, so FB merely consisted of keeping in the loop with the social activity of people I would see in person every day anyway. So I can totally understand why once-core FB activities are moving to Instagram/Snapchat/…

I just don't share this vision. You either have -real- friends, or you have acquaintances. Facebook is not for real friends. If people are your friends and want to stay in contact with you, they will - like they did before Facebook existed.

Just outside the village where I grew up there's a hill called America Hill. Two brothers walked up that hill together, then said goodbye walked down opposite sides, because one was going to America, and both knew they'd never see each other again.

Maybe in other villages there were other brothers who cared more about each other, and so one stayed who would rather have gone, or went who would rather have stayed. But I don't think that's a particularly positive view to take.

If facebook allows us to remain friends with more people, rather than ruthlessly pruning our friendships down to the few we can maintain purely in person, surely that's a good thing.

Re: Facebook Is Losing Teens

#70
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know Facebook's details, but in theory another possibility to lower P/E: "Stop pouring money into expansion, to lower expenses and increase bottom-line earnings." For example, Amazon could certainly do that, since they spend heavily on expansion

That is an important aspect, but let's consider the P/S (price/sales) ratio to gauge that savings potential: Facebook: 22.3 Google: 5.9 Amazon: 2.3 (source: money.msn.com) Of course, comparing to Amazon doesn't make sense. Retailers are always going to have very low margins and low P/S ratios. But comparing to Google does make sense. Assuming Facebook's potential margins are similar to Google's, Facebook would have t…

What was Google's P/S like 5 years ago?
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