To think Facebook has dropped off a cliff lately?

the problem is the suggested posts. Ads are one thing, but the suggested posts full feed (probably to cover up how few normal people are posting) means you can’t easily see when someone you know does post. Insta lets you snooze all suggested posts, Facebook makes you snooze individual ones or have a feed just of friends (but that filters out groups). It would be an easy fix to make it usable again.

it clearly works for the boomers though.

What I find is not that my friends aren't posting, but the FB feed prioritises ads and random posts or reels from people/pages I never heard of. If I look at a friend's profile, often there are masses of posts I've never seen. Like you, I mostly use it for the private groups.

The website itself is badly made and frequently breaks, has been involved in some very dodgy stuff (Cambridge Analytica, moderation failures helping fuel a genocide), and makes a horrible, rich man even richer.

When I open it up these days, most of my feed is not people I know, groups I'm a part of, or pages I follow. They're random pages and people.

That said, I still seem to open it multiple times a day! It's useful for keeping an eye on relatives and putting out big announcements. Most of my family didn't know I was pregnant until I posted a "hey I had a baby" post. The groups can be useful, for example there's a Tokyo Mothers Group which has helped me meet new people and get items I needed.

But I wish I didn't use it.

Hardly anyone I know posts on there now. There’s the seldom happy birthday posts and the local notice boards have regular postings but other than that it’s full of posts and pages I don’t even follow. My newsfeed is full of menopause remedies and I’m so sick to death of seeing Ian Huntley and Anthony Russell’s faces all over my news feed at the moment.

I want to quit it but I find it really useful for local information from the groups and for advice on my interests and hobbies. It's about the only thing it's good for. I never post and don't read other people's posts in their pages.

I used to see loads of my friends posting about the rugby but this 6 nations there's absolutely no posts. There have been some great matches this year too.

Yes I use it to keep up with local news.

Otherwise it's full of cringeworthy positive attitude quotes, period pants adverts and Reform bots.

I use it for local community information, school info, community groups for places i am going on holiday (for ideas ) hobby and health issue groups... not really for keeping up with friends or families lives anymore and I dont generally use other platforms for that either

I stopped using instagram years ago too as just adverts.

Can’t believe people still use it tbh. However lots argue they don’t post for others but to have a scrapbook of memories etc so presumably they still use it.

For me my use peaked in the pandemic - used it to stay in touch with a lot of people. It seems to have fallen over badly for person-to-person contact since. Like someone above said, you don't get notifications of events until three days later, and on the rare occasion friends do post, it takes best part of a week to show up.

I use it for 'memories', photo dump and to keep up with local stuff. I absolutely don't waste hours watching slime scooping, Garron Noone, Liam Peyton, Dylan B Hollis...etc.

Have just got into Insta but haven't built up many people yet. It seems fun tho. (Goddess Boys, anyone?) Bluesky is interesting for US news and ranting.

Kind of a hub for racists and the occasional local neighbourhood post

I just watch reels on it now

Yeah something odd is going on, i have a lot of dog owner friends and am very much in the dog world. In previous years whenever crufts was on I’d see many friends posting statuses about it, conversations going on about it etc etc - whenever I posted about it I’d get a number of “reacts” and a conversation would normally occur on my comment.

I posted yesterday about crufts after realising id not seen anyone mention it … tumbleweeds followed - not one react, no comments.

I thought I’d just suddenly become deeply unpopular 😂

It does seem to be very much weighted towards so-called “news” stories, adverts and so on, and very little in terms of posts from actual friends / acquaintances. Commercial stuff rather than seeing people you know.

But I’d say the same re Instagram.

I’ve come off SM for a couple of months and it’s been very nice.

Yeh and that’s fine but a decent restaurant should have their own website with menus and an availability to book. Not a Facebook page where you need an account to view it

Im 39 and only use it for local and interest groups, which its absolutely invaluable for. Id say most people are the same. Im in a hugely active and popular group for women in my city and the vast majority of posts are from women in their 20s so its not a generational thing.
Nobody posts to their wall anymore though thats the thing.
I dont have instagram or tiktok and reckon I will have completely bypassed that trend as I can kinda feel thats coming to an end.
Im considering rejigging my FB profile so the algorithm thinks im an old man so I stop getting so many targeted ads and reels

It’s useful for local stuff, our town group is very good but nobody I know uses it for personal stuff

Complaining that nobody posts on Facebook, whilst saying you don’t post on Facebook any more. 🤷‍♀️

It’s just about addictive ‘reels’ now,

Clubs and interest groups use facebook because it's free, setting up and maintaining a website costs and a lot of groups have no need for one. The software and hosting used by this site costs a lot and is being attacked by hackers all the time.

I finally deleted my account a few months ago. My feed was full of uninteresting advertisements, or pages that I have no intention of following. I sent a message to all of the relevant people, so we have moved our chats to WhatsApp instead... no advertisements, and just chatting and seeing important pictures and videos!

A few people that I know only have it for community groups, e.g. to see if it's their sheep that have escaped.

I still see people, posting everyday, craving attention.