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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

#161

Post by Theodores »

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…

> It seems to me that the overall interest in Facebook is decreasing

Google Trends never lies. Some say that people have learned they don't have to search for Facebook, but the trend for Facebook follows the 'myspace curve of disengagement':

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=GB&q=f...

Note that people never type 'whatsapp' into a browser.

I think that social media is always going to be fickle. Google and search is a much better bet for the product being relevant in years to come.

Facebook is also a black hole. It is very rare that something written on Facebook is noteworthy enough to be shared outside of Facebook, here for instance.

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

#162

Post by frosted-flakes »

tombert wrote: post #48
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…

> Instagram and WhatsApp are running strong with barely no competition You're not wrong, but I find it a bit frustrating how much resistance I get whenever I try and suggest using Signal instead of Whatsapp. As far as I can tell, it has pretty much all the features of Whatsapp that I use, without all the spying.

Signal work all right, but it doesn't feel very polished. Notifications are a bit wonky, and the unread message icon never shows up on the home screen icon.

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

#163

Post by sanxiyn »

fullshark wrote: post #124
standardUser wrote: post #109

It feels like Facebook now contains all of the negative parts of social media - complaining, arguing, chain posts, fake news, relatives, etc. While Instagram now has all the pleasant parts - pretty photos of families, vacations and food! So these days I find myself using Instagram regularly and Facebook almost never. Having said that, I'll never leave Facebook until something else replaces it. It's the only place I h…

Instagram to me seems like the worst parts of social media, in that it's a vanity feeding mechanism amplified. Which in turn makes it an anxiety inducing experience if you aren't doing "cool things" that make other people jealous.

I consume Instagram like TV (they even launched IGTV, although I don't use it and it's terrible). People mostly don't get anxiety from watching TV. Maybe it has to do with the fact I don't use Instagram as SNS.

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

#164

Post by b_tterc_p »

ryana wrote: post #45
b_tterc_p wrote: post #8

> How the study was conducted: A total of 1,500 persons were interviewed to explore Americans’ use of digital platforms and new media. From January 3rd through February 4th, 2019, telephone interviews were conducted with respondents age 12 and older who were selected via Random Digit Dial (RDD) sampling through both landline phones and mobile phones. The survey was offered in both Spanish and English. Data was weight…

I am always sad to see responses like this. Statistics is a very well-defined mathematical discipline, and any good research firm will use weighting techniques to adjust for demographic-based likelihood of response. The results they get from this are very accurate. If you have concerns about Edison's methodology or application of standard survey weighting then I think that could be a fruitful conversation. But implyi…

Fair. I do commonly do social statistics myself and have to deal with worse. My gripe was moreso that it's a random digit dialing survey (which I think would be full of bias for a purpose like this) instead of the actual usage statistics that facebook provides. Also, sampling is simply a hard thing to do. And their definition of leaving is pretty poor.

Also if we want to get nitpicky, while there is a significant drop between 2017 and 2018, there is no significant drop between 2019 and 2018 (62% -> 61%, p value of .57), despite the headline being 'Facebook Usage Continues to Drop' :)

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

#165

Post by nabla9 »

travisoneill1 wrote: post #160
nabla9 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also one of the biggest failures of the modern antitrust law. If giants like FB can't innovate and must buy competition to survive despite all the advantages they have, something is wrong.

Counterpoint: Many new innovative companies are being founded in this space and those that are successful are richly rewarded (by selling to FB). The system is working exactly how it is supposed to.

>The system is working exactly how it is supposed to.

US system is designed to be anti-markets and pro business, so you have a point. Good for startup, good for FB, bad for consumer and competition.

It's still against what anti-trust law was supposed to be.

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

#166

Post by standardUser »

fullshark wrote: post #124
standardUser wrote: post #109

It feels like Facebook now contains all of the negative parts of social media - complaining, arguing, chain posts, fake news, relatives, etc. While Instagram now has all the pleasant parts - pretty photos of families, vacations and food! So these days I find myself using Instagram regularly and Facebook almost never. Having said that, I'll never leave Facebook until something else replaces it. It's the only place I h…

Instagram to me seems like the worst parts of social media, in that it's a vanity feeding mechanism amplified. Which in turn makes it an anxiety inducing experience if you aren't doing "cool things" that make other people jealous.

I guess I view it from the other end of that spectrum. It's a place where I get ideas of places to go and things to do/see/eat. Plus I enjoy seeing the people I care about doing things that make them happy. I want my friends to show off the best parts of their lives.

But I'm also very particular about who I follow, unlike on Facebook where I'm friends with every old coworker, classmate and family member.

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

#167

Post by saberworks »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #130
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…

> It's becoming boring and boring, so that's why I believe people are leaving Email hasn't had any new features added in decades, and people still use it. For me, Facebook is a tool. I use it to organise events and groups, and communicate with people. There's no other tool that works as well. I can have all my messages, groups, and events in one place. Almost everyone I know uses Facebook as well, so it's centralised…

You may be missing a whole bunch of people like me who refuse to use facebook. And you'll just never know how many. If there's an event that is solely organized through facebook, I just don't go. If that means I miss out, I miss out.

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

#168

Post by izzydata »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #130
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…

> It's becoming boring and boring, so that's why I believe people are leaving Email hasn't had any new features added in decades, and people still use it. For me, Facebook is a tool. I use it to organise events and groups, and communicate with people. There's no other tool that works as well. I can have all my messages, groups, and events in one place. Almost everyone I know uses Facebook as well, so it's centralised…

At least my email doesn't have constant security issues and controversial practices.

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

#169

Post by MarkMc »

Facebook says their North American monthly active users have increased 1% since 2017. Edison Research says there are 6% fewer US users since 2017.

I'm curious to understand the reason for this discrepancy. Edison says,

We're saying, "Do you currently use Facebook?" Facebook is probably measuring it on, "Do you ever open the app, or do you ever use it on any level?"

Here's how Facebook defines monthly active users:

We define a monthly active user as a registered Facebook user who logged in and visited Facebook through our website or a mobile device, or used our Messenger app (and is also a registered Facebook user), in the last 30 days as of the date of measurement.

So is Edison's explanation reasonable? Maybe people only think they "use" Facebook when they scroll through the feed - and people are still using it for other purposes.

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

#170

Post by tinyhouse »

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…

"Instagram and WhatsApp are running strong with barely no competition"

Telegram is getting popular in some countries where WhatsApp has been very dominant.

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