Facebook is 'dead and buried', replaced by simpler networks, study finds

[SecularMotion]

Source: theage.com

A study of how older teenagers use social media has found Facebook is "not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried" and is being replaced by simpler social networks such as Twitter and Snapchat, an expert has claimed.

Young people now see the site as "uncool" and keep their profiles live purely to stay in touch with older relations, among whom it remains popular.

Professor Daniel Miller of University College London, an anthropologist who worked on the European Union-funded research, wrote in an article for the academic news website The Conversation: "Mostly they feel embarrassed even to be associated with it.

"This year marked the start of what looks likely to be a sustained decline of what had been the most pervasive of all social networking sites.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/facebook-is-dead-and-buried-replaced-by-simpler-networks-study-finds-20131228-300f7.html

[Nye Bevan]

1. These days Facebook is mostly for things like new moms posting placenta pics.

My teenage kids never seem to use it anymore.

[Jester Messiah]

80. The problem with enabling sharing...

is that you are also enabling over-sharing. :-/

[Jesus Malverde]

2. Facebook themselves have been emphasizing this message...

They themselves brought it up on their last conference call.

This is a marketing campaign to convince the world that Facebook is "grown up" and credible.

The subtext is, if young people are not using it, older people must be using it..

Older people hear this and wonder what they are missing and log back into Facebook.

For all the love of young consumers...the older consumer is the only consumer with much discretionary income.

I'm pretty sure these studies are really marketing to get people talking and logging back into Facebook.

[ConcernedCanuk]

6. Well - if FB wants to target us older people, I'm all for it.

.
.
.

Intelligent discussions beat frivolous posts imo.

Locally I belong to a few groups - 3 of them totally community related.

It is nice to keep in touch with friends and community, share community upcoming (and past) events, pictures and so on.

I never got into the gaming part of it, no interest.

I've found and got into contact with friends from decades ago - no other venue I know of could have accomplished that.

Maybe some of the wiser young ones may hang on with the prospect of being able to keep in contact with those they cherish.

Hopefully there's enough of us old farts to keep FB financially viable for the creators/administrators.

I think so - good or bad, the average mean age of humans is increasing.

CC

[bemildred]

3. A fad, basically. nt

[bluedigger]

13. That was what I thought when the kids started wearing their pants around their knees.

When was that - twenty years ago?

[bitchkitty]

62. Something I wish would become uncool.

I hate that look. I especially hate it when I see grown men with it...

[Xyzse]

72. I guess... Sometimes though I want to look at the brighter side of things.

I congratulate them on their weight loss.
Thinking they may not have had time to buy newer threads.

[bitchkitty]

74. LOL n/t

[former9thward]

20. Yeah, just like the internet...

[bemildred]

21. The Internet is not a fad, but there are lots of fads on the internet.

Many internet businesses, that's their business plan, become a big internet fad and sell out in an IPO.

[former9thward]

24. Well FB is not one of them.

It grows every year despite the naysayers. FB has 1.2 billion active users. No one is even close.

http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2013/10/30/facebook-passes-1-19-billion-monthly-active-users-874-million-mobile-users-728-million-daily-users/#!qOpDt

[bemildred]

26. Right. nt

[4dsc]

4. I'm older and I love FB..

I know most of my younger relatives don't like some the comments I post but that's why I'm their uncle. lol

[Plucketeer]

11. LOL....

My D-I-L and I have pissed off my granddaughter on FB. Just recently, I posted a toddler photo of her. She was not amused. We just saw that photo differently.

[4dsc]

5. I love their liberal news feeds too.

Great source of information for liberal if you ask me.

[davidpdx]

50. I agree

I would bet that you like myself share a lot of that with your friends. There is some good information to spread via some of those groups.

[Garion_55]

7. Only one thing to see on facebook anymore

[Ed Suspicious]

9. What more do you need?

[dipsydoodle]

17. And what may I ask is wrong with cat pictures ?

[davidpdx]

49. Yeah

How else are we suppose to keep up with the newest Grumpy Cat pictures? I'm not convinced any of the others are a good alternative.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

8. I still use it to play Pot Farm

but other than that, maybe a few messages a month.

[SoapBox]

10. Never done it, Never will.

I've got better things to do...like post at DU.

[progressoid]

12. What? Young people don't want to do the things their parents and grandparents are doing?

shocking.

[KG]

14. I'm enjoying my FB experience much more than I thought I would.

[Lint Head]

15. Snapchat Downplays Phone Number Matching Hack, Says It’s Added New Counter-Measures

Security researchers publishing a way to match Snapchat usernames to phone numbers, Snapchat has published a skimpy statement making the hack sound impractical and noting “We recently added additional counter-measures and continue to make improvements to combat spam and abuse.”

Earlier this week ZDNet published an in-depth write-up of how white-hat Gibson Security researchers had tried to notify Snapchat of a way hackers could connect usernames to phone numbers for use in stalking, but were ignored. The GibSec team then published the exploit publicly on Christmas Eve. Read ZDNet’s post for full details on how the hack works.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/27/snapchat-phone-number-hack/

[madville]

16. I have no idea what the "teenagers" are doing

I have about 400 friends/family/coworkers on Facebook, it's still popular in my circles. I don't even know anyone that uses Twitter, I have a Twitter account but all it does is follow a couple of sports teams and sends me updates on their status.

[Codeine]

18. Social networking without all those complicated words and thoughts.

Just purty pictures.

[on point]

19. Stopped using it as soon as it became clear they had no respect for privacy of users. It's dead

[uppityperson]

22. I notice mostly tweens, teens and older people. Older teens, young adults do not use it much

Once it opened up for everyone, those young adults bailed, leaving the other 2 age ends on there. It is an easy way to share pictures with a lot of people though. Oh, businesses also are using it more.

[daleo]

33. I know lots of young adults on Facebook

They might not be very cool, though, just like most people.

[loudsue]

23. Not soon enough for me. n/t

[klook]

25. Facebook is anything but dead.

It is THE de facto method of communication for many people I know, young and old -- many of whom have given up on email because they can't figure out how to control spam, and can't be bothered to call or send a physical letter or postcard. I've lost touch with a number of friends, and have diminished contact with some family members, all because they communicate almost exclusively via Facebook.

I continue to stay off of Facebook primarily because of their corporate strategy of selling and sharing members' data with their real customers: their advertisers and purchasers of user data.

I'd like to believe FB is dead or dying, but my observations tell me otherwise. With more than a billion users, how exactly is Facebook "dead"?

[seabeckind]

27. Just because it's the only game in town doesn't mean it's a good game

The fact is that it has joined the gadget age. Where it tries to be everything for everybody and fails to do any one of those things well.

A "smart" phone is an example. Takes pictures but its lens system is so limited it doesn't do it well. Does email but its keyboard and display are limiting. Same thing with the apps.

Oh, and it lets me watch tv and movies...on a 2 inch screen.

[davidpdx]

55. I agree, those that say it is dead are a little quick to dismiss it

I think alternatives are going to eventually challenge Facebook. With better technology different platforms can be developed.

Facebook was always going to have to rely upon advertising to stay afloat financially. The users themselves really generate no revenue. It is the information about those users that is used to customize advertising that makes them the money. Granted it was nicer when the advertising wasn't invasive. It is only going to get worse. I have heard they are now including video advertising in news feeds (though I haven't seen it yet).

At the beginning of March I will have been on Facebook six years (I was a latecomer). I live overseas, so I'd say the opposite is true for me. Facebook has helped me stay in contact and actually find people who I haven't talked to since high school.

[elleng]

28. Maybe, if 'young people' were the be all and end all,

but as they're not, the study isn't worth much, imo.

I'm a senior, & FB helps me, my friends, classmates, distant family, adult childrens' friends, etc etc etc stay connected.

[seabeckind]

29. FB has experienced mission creep

When it was first envisioned it had a single mission and succeeded quite well. Its popularity is the evidence of that.

Then sites that wanted to do forums but didn't want the overhead adopted its system. But that system is terrible for doing real, indepth commentary with continuity. So what we end up with is a hafassed threading system without categorizations.

A lot like the WWW...the most fantastic library system in the world without a card catalog and the dewey decimal system (I prefer the LibofCong).

FB is like so muh of what we run into today in our laissez faire society. The functionality that requires a trancendence across individual profit goals is never done. We couldn't do the space program today of our country depended on it.

That also goes for the telephone system, energy, healthcare, etc. I think it's Tiawan where you carry your medical history on a thumbnail in your pocket. Hit by a truck in Arkansas and that thumbnail is just as valid as in Manhattan. Good luck trying to implement that.

Think what the Rural Electrifcation Project accomplished. We can't even get cell service in a lot of areas.

</rant>

[DeSwiss]

34. Excellent!

[madrchsod]

30. facebook is dead?

number 2 in alexa traffic rankings and snapshot is 8,000 +

snapshot has along ways to go to catch up to facebook`s numbers.

[daleo]

31. Facebook is well entrenched with older cohorts

They are a much less fickle group, so Facebook is here to stay for quite a while.

[AlbertCat]

32. If teenagers don't like it...

.... it must be pretty good.

[seabeckind]

38. No. It means FB doesn't meet their requirements.

I don't think it ever really did but it filled a void, a need. If you need to pound a nail, a screwdriver will sometimes work but not well.

As I've said many times, we have become the barely adequate society. If you don't insist on quality, pretty soon the expectations are reduced to the point where we're willing to accept anything.

And the waste...omg, the waste. Some standards would go a long way toward continuity and reusability. And yet the biggest effort being made in industry is toward uniqueness so you can't take your business anywhere else.

Think of all the effort some people go thru to build a portfolio on one system just to see it become obsolete.

[sendero]

35. I will really be surprised..

... if any social media site dominates for more than 5 years or so ever again. It is the nature of humans to want something newer and better and the nature of software developers to create something newer and better.

[TekGryphon]

36. If I had the mentality of a teenager, I'd think Facebook sucked too

If I added about a thousand "friends" I barely know and don't care about, and then deleted all the authors, software developers, economists, journalists, think tanks, social justice institutes, philosophers, and industry experts I follow, then liked a bunch of con-artist retailers promising free iPads who spam my wall constantly - I'd think Facebook sucks too.

Thankfully I'm not an idiot teenager anymore, so Facebook serves its purpose perfectly: an amazingly customizable and powerful RSS feed that also allows social networking.

[seabeckind]

39. Until it doesn't.

Then what?

[TekGryphon]

40. Until a meteor kills us all? Then what?

I operate off reality, not slippery slope fantasy.

[seabeckind]

42. Slippery slope? No. Reality.

Betamax, VHS, CD, DVD, Blueray.

110, 126, 35mm, slides, negatives, jpg.

78rpm, 45rpm, 33rpm, 8-track, cassette, thumbnail.

What do these have in common? Hint: each is either obsolete or is ready to be obsolete

Pick any element in that list and if you have invested anything that is not retrievable, you're SOL.

A month or so ago I lost the last PC I had which was capable of reading 3.5 inch floppies. Its hard drive was the old technology so I drove nail thru it. Someday I'll probably remember something that was on it that I really wanted.

[TekGryphon]

43. If you needed tech advice, all you had to do was ask.

http://www.amazon.com/External-Floppy-Disk-Drive-19308801-40/dp/B000FGCUSE

For $11 you can access 3.5 inch floppies 10,000x faster than you did in the olden days.

As for your original premise, I believe that refusing to adopt technology because "eventually" it's going to be retired or redundant is an absolutely stupid way to go through life.

Enjoy technology while its here, get the most out of it while its viable, then move to something else when its not.

Otherwise you're just one of those poor saps constantly chasing the "next best thing", of which 95% are failures and the other 5% are prohibitively expensive for first generation adopters.

[seabeckind]

45. You keep propping up these strawmen

and then arguing against them instead of what I said.

I didn't ask for tech advice. What I said was that 3.5 inch floppies are obsolete. I upconverted as I got new PCs. I still have some laying around for sentimental reasons -- the release ones with my name on them.

I never said I refused to adopt new technology. What I said was that you have to make sure you don't burn your bridges and always realize that the only constant is change and that today's greatest new thing will end up in the landfill right next to the yesterday's greatest thing. It's just prudence to make sure the video of your kid's first step isn't on it exclusively. And isn't in a format that nobody supports anymore.

Example: the MS Surface might be the greatest thing since toilet paper but would you entrust information you value very highly to a cloud?

[TekGryphon]

54. Ok, great.

Eventually Facebook will become obsolete.
Eventually a meteor will kill all of us.

I'll handle those eventualities when they come. Until then, I'll continue using effective technology to its fullest, and Facebook is an amazingly effective technology for RSS-style information and social networking.

[Skittles]

56. that one is a lost cause

thinks you don't have a life if you don't suck up to facebook

[TekGryphon]

58. If you're as bad at Facebook as you are at reading comprehension, I can understand your frustration

I did not say people who don't use Facebook have no lives.

I said people who call Facebook "boring" or "stupid" are people who must have "boring" or "stupid" lives, simply because 99% of the information Facebook displays on your feed is stuff YOU subscribed to and that YOU choose to continue to subscribe to.

Your wall on Facebook is a mirror of yourself and your interests. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Skittles]

59. I admire people who refuse to be sucked into the facebook borg

I don't claim they have no lives

[TekGryphon]

65. There's many reasons not to use Facebook.

Some of those reasons are good ones.
Some of those reasons are bad ones.

Two of the bad reasons are people who say they left Facebook because it was "boring" or "stupid". Those people deserve to be laughed at because either:

1. Facebook is a correct reflection of their "boring" and "stupid" lives.
2. They lack the bare minimum cognitive abilities needed to subscribe to "interesting" and "smart" feeds that match their interests.

That's it. No other options are possible. Facebook has everything for everyone and the people who fail at utilizing it effectively are people who suck or who suck at the internet.

[snooper2]

76. Um, that is what LinkedIn is for LOL

no fucking cat pictures there...

[TekGryphon]

78. I maintain a LinkedIn account. LinkedIn is the definition of dead.

None of my favorite authors, economists, philosophers, social justice institutes, niche industry news sites maintain a LinkedIn feed.

Besides, I like cat pictures. If a friend posted a bunch of cat pictures I didn't like, I'd turn off updates from that person, or set it to "only important" updates so I could only see things on my wall that got plenty of likes and comments (like a wedding announcement, etc).

[snooper2]

79. I guess none of the folks you follow have a job

That's what LinkedIn is for...

social networking for professionals


When you update your status on LinkedIn to "searching for job" you'll get hits and advice and offers...

When you update your facebook status to "searching for job" you'll get a bunch of "is sad" cat picks LOL



http://images.cryhavok.org/d/11199-1/LOLcat+-+Happy+Cat+is+Sad.jpg

[TekGryphon]

81. Who said I'm looking for a job? Who said Facebook is for job searching?

I just re-read my posts and can't see anything anywhere that would lead any reasonable person to think I claimed Facebook was a job-finding site.

[pitohui]

37. facebook is for people whose mask has become the face. not sharing the real you

but you cannot be yourself on a forum that is being scrutinized by bosses, lawyers, grandparents, and so on

for older people who no longer have any secrets, any job or bosses, or sex/party life it's fine i guess but otherwise you have to be constantly checking your privacy settings & constantly fixing little holes here and there

it also angers me that facebook will tell other users that you "liked" something you didn't like, just because their robot decided you "woulda" liked it if you thought of it -- i've several times been told someone liked something she couldn't have liked, in one case because she was DECEASED

it's really better off avoided unless you are marketing a carefully crafted image...and even then you can fall into some traps

[TekGryphon]

41. You should probably learn how to use Facebook

My posts only show to friends, others can't see then. My profile can't be searched on Google. No apps have posting permission.

Only co-worker on my list is one I chose to accept.

[pitohui]

51. actually you should, you're going to get a nasty surprise one of these days

you think your posts show only to "friends" but oopsy...this isn't always the case...and google is not the only search engine

but this is why i don't talk to old folks like my own folks about it, at some point ppl are unwilling to learn from other people's bad experiences and blame the victim and assume it's always the user who did something wrong

i assure you that my dead friend was not changing her privacy settings, facebook did an update

my friend who used an alternative name didn't change her settings, facebook took it on themselves to that

so on and so forth

if you think your privacy settings on facebook will protect you, you are going to be in for a nasty surprise one of these days, so good luck to you is all i can tell you

kids aren't stupid and they have more time to spend learning new tech than the average bear so...i'm going to trust the combination of their observations and my own experiences...

but maybe it will work out for you, i hope so

[TekGryphon]

57. This "old guy" is an Information Systems Administrator w/ ...

... 6 years of education in business software and multiple business intelligence system roll-outs across 3 companies and 7 states.

Trust me, Facebook privacy, now more than ever, is a user-centric issue. You're either setting your privacy settings correctly, or you're not. No excuses, especially when there's dozens of reputable sites out there to help you navigate Facebook's privacy options.

And yes, occasionally Facebook will do an update that will create some new default settings. This happens maybe once a year, if that. When that happens you take the 3 minutes to go through and set the new settings to your desired privacy level.

As for your dead friend, I'm sorry to hear that. I had a friend die, too. We took the 30 seconds to learn what to do, and the 5 minutes to request his page be turned to memorial status which prevented anyone but confirmed friends from viewing it.

Using technology is a pro-active process. It's utterly ridiculous that people complain about spending 5 minutes to learn about something they might spend 5 years using.

[GeorgeGist]

69. Has it occurred to you ...

That you lack people skills?

[TekGryphon]

71. Oh, yes. I don't even deny it.

I've never apologized for being a "bigot" against other bigots.
I've never apologized for calling "stupid" on people with stupid opinions.

People who refuse to take the 5 minutes to learn Facebook's privacy settings and spend 5+ years leaking data and then say "Facebook is un-secure" have stupid opinions. People who have any number of interests but refuse to subscribe to pages that cater to those interests and then call Facebook "boring" have stupid opinions. People who add every single person they come across in their lives as "friends" and never learn how to manage feeds and then call Facebook "overwhelming" or "pointless" have stupid opinions.

Even avoiding Facebook because your family can see your posts is stupid. You can easily change your settings so that users x, y, and z can't see your posts, making it so you can post freely without worrying about mommy and daddy seeing so long as you don't go so extreme that someone brings your posts up to them.

[YOHABLO]

44. I never really understood why people want everyone to know their business.

I am under an alias on FB .. and now I would like to close the account and don't know how. I actually don't want people from my past finding me. That's history.. I've moved on.

[seabeckind]

46. Hotel California

You can check out but you can never leave.

They're like the catholic church...once you realize the error of your ways they'll take you back. Just a little grovelling.

It's one of the options in the account setup. Or the security...

[DesertDiamond]

48. So funny you say that, because I posted that too a couple of years ago when a friend tried to

delete his account and found out it couldn't be deleted. I posted, "Facebook -- you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave." LOL

[pitohui]

52. facebook is in the process of busting/deleting aliases

good luck, maybe they'll just delete your account for you

i know a number of ppl it happened to over the past few weeks, unfortunately they were a group of folks in their 40s and they wanted their accounts to remain

but they have jobs and can't use real names to talk frankly abt politics, women's issues, etc.

several of them just plain got kicked off the site for refusing to use their "real" names, that's just stupid, what is a woman's "real" name anyway? her dad's name? her husband's? it's like its 1969 all over again

[seabeckind]

70. I think you've hit the reason for its decline in the young

In real life you have exchanges on different levels and different topics depending on the person you communicate with. In FB there's too much risk that this personal link will be seen by someone who you don't want to see it.

Like a parent finding out that their chaste daughter has been having carnal thoughts. Or a friend overhears something said about her.

IOW, if you can't be totally social in the ways you need to be social, what good is it? All the stuff is bland. Like eating at an old people's buffet. Where's the spice?

Then there's the boss.

When I set up my FB I used my real last name but a combo of my wife and my first name. The wingnuts on the local rightwing newspaper have an active goal to eliminate opposing views. So they flagged my posts. The newspaper kicked it to FB cause I wasn't using a real name. Splitting hairs.

FB asked for an image of my driver's license or other gov't ID. Aside from the crazy idea that they would include exact DOB in their system, what person in their right mind would send that image off to the ether?

[MADem]

77. I would wager that close to half of the accounts on FB are fake names.

Maybe even fake personas...

[DesertDiamond]

47. I feel deep gratitude for FB for reconnecting me with old friends and for the new ones I've made.

[mia]

61. I agree!

I really enjoy keeping up with others through facebook.

[DavidDvorkin]

63. Yes!

[NoOneMan]

53. Good riddence

[Lifelong Dem]

60. Because staying in touch with older family members is such an adult thing

Yeah, and because Twitter is so so much better. Did I mention I own stock in Twitter and Snapchat. Oops left that out in the study report.

[Blue Owl]

64. Ain't nobody's business if I do use Facebook

Wait, wut?

[chungking34]

66. I find most social networking sites to be overrated IMO

They're home to lots of spam and trolls. Plus many sites these days require you to verify your account by providing your cell phone info - a real invasion of my privacy.

[DontTreadOnMe]

67. You've Got Mail!

AOL is going to be here forever!... oh wait.

[workinclasszero]

73. Corporate overseers in america use FB

to spy on employees and fire them for acts done in their so-called private lives.

Don't hear the reich wing bitching about first amendment rights when Joe Blow gets fired from hi job cause he posted party pictures on FB.

[ileus]

75. Jeep, guns, and motorcycle groups

I'm a member of 70 or so groups. My "friends" feed takes about 3% of my FBI time.

The rest is browsing groups dedicated to interests, or selling.

Probably 45 BST gun groups
5-10 dedicated jeep groups
3-4 motorcycle groups
10-15 misc interest groups

[Capt. Obvious]

82. Myspace is coming back!!