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A Teenager’s View on Social Media
281–290 of 301 posts
Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have teens ever been an important demographic for Facebook though? It started only for college students - it wasn't until three or four years later they opened it up to everyone. [And more broadly - do we use popularity among teens to measure success for anything that isn't specifically targeted primarily at teens (e.g. a company like Abercrombie & Fitch)?] Teenagers in high school usually see their friends every day…
But teenagers today are college students of tomorrow, and if you believe OP, the college students of tommorow may associate Facebook with years of negative impressions that they acquired throughout high school. That's a huge barrier for Facebook to overcome, especially when a 'cooler' competitor can expand its feature set to meet the students' long-distance relationship needs without any of the stigma that they assoc…
Alternatively, rather than imprinting into a particular social network (Facebook bad, Twitter obscure, Instagram relevant) it could be that these teens will simply migrate to a different toolset when their needs change rather than expecting a tool to be used to photoblog their party lifestyle of college years to also work as a tool to keep up with post-college life. Facebook changed over time to basically follow a particular demographic (those whose age mirrored the founder) but most of the others are built for specific purposes and have a lot more inertia behind them. Maybe being first is what let Facebook change and re-define itself, but so far none of the others seem to have changed much from the day they were launched in terms of how people actually use them (and FB itself has had numerous failures in attempts to spin off mini-pivots as individual apps.)
Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media
#283Also noteworthy that Google+ didn't even get a mention, even if to mock it.
Are there people who actively use G+? To me it seems to have turned into this weird thing that tries to offer a lot of functionality but doesn't really make it clear what it actually is. It was supposed to be a social network and now it's Google's "social layer" - whatever that may mean. I personally don't even know anyone who would describe G+ as relevant.
The only reason why I "use" G+ is for photos - and that's only because Google got rid of all the Picasa albums. But the interface is so horrible I can't believe it's actually made by google. Once you got to photos it opens the most recent album by default(why??) and the option to switch to albums view is not where you would expect it(on the 3-stripe option icon that every other product got us used to), but instead it's hidden away. It makes absolutely no sense and I hate using it as a product. The only reason why I have to visit it occasionally is that Picassa(the actual tool) is fantastic for backing up and managing pictures.
Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media
#284> I only know a handful of people (myself included) that believe Snapchat does delete your photos. Everyone else I know believes that Snapchat has some secret database somewhere with all of your photos on it. It takes a special kind of stupid to even consider the idea that the photos are _really_ deleted.
Well, then I guess you're calling a majority of the population (including doctors, lawyers, artist, musicians, etc) "stupid". What you really mean is someone who doesn't understand how technology (and tech companies) work. This could easily be mitigated if we enforced privacy laws saying that if you tell someone something is deleted, then it must actually be securely deleted. They might even be on the books already,…
First of all, my comment was meant in the context of the article which is the use of technology by _teenagers_, not the general part of the population. And even so, yes people should know better, privacy has a big place in the public debate nowdays.
Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media
#285For another single data point I asked my 15 year old son a few months back about what social media platforms he uses and was rather surprised to have him answer "Facebook is for old people" - which probably means over 20.
What else did he say?
Some evasive mutterings about Snapchat.
Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media
#286Here's another teenager's view on social media. I don't have an account for any of these, and I don't want one. I have, let's see, HN, GitHub, and Stack Exchange. Those accounts are my online identity, which I make sure is separate from my real identity. If you want to contact me, you can email me, or if you know me in real life, you can text me. I don't feel smug about not having those accounts, but I'm not embarras…
I am the same age as the OP but also have different experiences. I've never used Instagram, and frankly don't see the point in people posting useless pictures of themselves or showing friends what they are eating now. It makes me sick when I see people smiling for their smartphones and then desperately refreshing the page/app in hope of satisfaction in the form of likes.
This summarizes that perfectly:
"If I don’t get any likes on my Instagram photo or Facebook post within 15 minutes you can sure bet I'll delete it."
This also makes it clear to me that those social platforms are not about sharing your life with others, they are about validation and a need to be seen/recognized. Even using Snapchat, which apparently has no likes or comments, does not make sense to me then. If you use Snapchat to post pictures about how bored you are, why bother in the first place. Find something interesting to do and be done with it. There are so many important and much more valuable things that one can do than to waste time on social platforms.
One thing did make me smile, though: "I only know a handful of people (myself included) that believe Snapchat does delete your photos.". Of course they delete them. It's not as if those pictures had some kind of value, right?
Also: "[...] when photos are “leaked” or when there’s controversy about security on the app, we honestly do not really care.". That's the right attitude. Don't care what happens to your data and you might as well find yourself in Airstrip One some day.
Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "liking" feature on FB/Instagram is one of the clearest manifestations of the vanity-seeking behavior that all humans possess. Here's my longer form take on it: http://www.techdisruptive.com/2014/05/01/vanity-sells/
Hah, you just want to get people to click that link to your article so you can get views and feel good about yourself. [Cue reply to me saying I'm only replying so that I can see other people pay attention to me and reply to my comment.]
You get an upvote good sir!
Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
24/m here. Snapchat has really taken over social communication in my group of friends. It's the number one way to stay in touch on a daily basis. I went from texting 4-5k messages a month, to less than a thousand. If I'm walking down the street and see something I want to share, I'm not gonna post it on Facebook or Instagram because it isn't important enough and you are opening yourself up to be judged by hundreds, i…
Can someone explain to me why adding ephemeral messaging to FB, Instagram, etc. hasn't been done? If Snapchat is really getting so much traction because of one trivial feature, it seems obvious to offer that same feature. My only interaction with these platforms is having done some work against their (rather poor) APIs, so I may be missing something terribly obvious.
Instagram tried to do it with direct messages, but it didn't take off. This reaffirms my opinion that you can't have a single app that does everything. A couple reasons this may be true, especially in Snapchat's case:
1. Snapchat's whole UI is based around this single feature. Its reason for existence is this feature alone, so they are able to commit way more time and focus on getting this one thing right. As soon as you open the app the first you see are your snaps. Swipe left for the camera, and left again for the contacts. Super simple. Very fast to navigate.
2. Snapchat is semi-anonymous. You can set your Instagram profile to private, but it's still not the same as having an app based around short-lived pics / messages that aren't tied to your online identity.
3. Instagram = Good photos. Vine = Good videos. Facebook = Staying in touch. LinkedIn = Career stuff. Snapchat = Random things you want to share with friends. Changing people's perception of your app is hard, if not impossible (in some cases). Just like Instagram's video feature didn't replace Vine (just distracted people from Vine, and ruined Instagrams clutter free feed), Instagram's direct feature won't replace Snapchat. Having different apps for different uses, even if purely psychological, helps people separate their social lives.
Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously nothing stays around forever. But there is a big difference between a trendy app that everyone uses for a couple years and then stops, and Facebook, which many people don't use on a daily basis but still keep it around because its usefulness outweighs the effort required to keep your account. I have friends who have deleted their Facebook accounts, only to come back a month later with a very basic account j…
Not at all obvious to the investors who value these companies at tens and hundreds of billions of dollars. They don't expect them to dissapear in 5-10 years
Seeing as how Facebook has been around for over 10 years now, I don't see how that's relevant in this case.
Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media
#290This is filled with gems that old farts like me (I'm 30) don't have any idea about. If I don’t get any likes on my Instagram photo or Facebook post within 15 minutes you can sure bet I'll delete it. Super interesting take - it's as though they are posting not to show people stuff but to get people's approval for what they are posting. Simple but critically different in my opinion. Facebook is often used by us mainly…
I think Whatsapp has emerged as the better group service that everyone is using. It's a little too easily brushed aside in this article.
Whatsapp is the primary messaging app for many of my teenage cousins. Most have it as the default message app and is a permanent fixture on their phone home screens and rarely use SMS anymore.