As time goes by I find myself less interested in using Facebook, but as one of the initial users who was hooked via the college exclusivity angle I find myself interested in how the site is changing. Based on the research I've done, most starkly, the platform is shedding young people at an increasing rate, and it's only getting worse. I found an article earlier this morning and it seems to address some of the main concerns people who end up quitting the platform have.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01497/full
This is pretty much in line with how I feel about the platform now. Lack of privacy, minimal interesting content, no engaging conversation, and most of my friends and peers just don't use it anymore. Lately I feel like I've hit a threshold and have no interest in using it going forward. I have a small, private account to follow my intimate family from time to time, and I still use messenger, and that's about it.
Anymore it also seems like young people like story features that allow them to avoid a public presence. They share with their friends and don't leave a trail of activity.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01497/full
The number of young Facebook users (age between 12 to 34) rapidly declined by almost 20% in 2 years (Edison Research, 2019). This decline may be a significant indicator for the challenging future of Facebook. Simply put, Facebook is no longer the go-to social media for personal and social uses, which can be called a considerable dive given the platform’s popularity over the years.
Building on the existing literature, we propose eight motives for Facebook withdrawal: information overload, privacy, banality, addiction, peer pressure, emergence of new platform, productivity, and annoyance (see Table 1). First, privacy is a significant reason to leave Facebook. The concern for privacy is stronger for Facebook quitters than Facebook users (Stieger et al., 2013). Govani and Pashley (2007) also state that personal privacy concerns may strongly impact the decision to participate (or not) on Facebook. For example, in a qualitative study by Dindar and Akbulut (2014), a participant noted that Facebook interferes with privacy too much and another one indicated his/her intention to quit if privacy was violated.
Many Facebook users also stopped their activity because of losing interest/banality. Baker and White (2011) interviewed 69 adolescents, and 51% of them said they no longer see interesting content. Participants from Baumer et al. (2013) indicated that Facebook is trivial and uninteresting since they think content on Facebook is no longer entertaining.
Similarly, some research points out that people leave Facebook because they perceive contents to be annoying. They were disturbed by people’s continuous posts and disliked how others presented themselves online (Rainie et al., 2013; Stieger et al., 2013). For instance, a survey from Facebook quitters showed that participants highly agreed that they were annoyed by the unnecessary posts and advertisements (Dindar and Akbulut, 2014).
This is pretty much in line with how I feel about the platform now. Lack of privacy, minimal interesting content, no engaging conversation, and most of my friends and peers just don't use it anymore. Lately I feel like I've hit a threshold and have no interest in using it going forward. I have a small, private account to follow my intimate family from time to time, and I still use messenger, and that's about it.
Anymore it also seems like young people like story features that allow them to avoid a public presence. They share with their friends and don't leave a trail of activity.