To think Facebook has had it's day?

[Flippedouthere]

Been wondering this for a while and again today as I scroll through my feed and it's full of adverts, posts from pages I've liked and a few crap memes/inspirational quotes shared by the same handful of people. As always, very little in the way of actual posts from friends.

I joined Facebook over 10 years ago when I had small children - I now have teens, as do the majority of my approx 120 friends. While there was always some crap and attention seeking drama, I used to enjoy seeing people's news and updates. These days, most friends rarely post. I only post, on average, every couple of weeks as I'm now busy working and also don't feel very motivated to as Facebook is so boring! When I do post I usually get a fair amount of likes and comments, so people are clearly still going on there!

I do have Twitter & Instagram accounts but don't really bother with them and have no intention of starting now. Nor am I looking for a new SM platform (DD uses Snapchat - no thanks!).

I'll admit I do sometimes hanker for the days when the internet didn't exist and spare time was spent, reading, watching films, pursuing hobbies, getting stuff done! Maybe I'll go back to that and post ocassional Facebook updates to stay in touch!

I recently went through a lot of my settings and groups and had a tidy up, which helped. But it seems nowadays you just have to say something like, 'feeling old'...and your Facebook feed is instantly full of stuff about cruises, Saga and comfy slacks.

I stay because I keep in touch with friends I have made on here who have children with additional needs, a few friends from school who it's nice to see pictures and updates from and because my ds has a very rare genetic condition and thanks to Facebook I am able to connect with the families of the other 50 or so children around the world who have the same condition.

@Flippedouthere

YANBU. I used to really enjoy it; communicating with friends and family, and ex colleagues, and mates who had moved away, and family who live far away, and playing games on there, and posting pics and stuff.

But these days it's full of people with their photoshopped pics, their edited lives, and their bragging, moaning, and attention-seeking.

And the cryptic bullshit does my head in. Someone posts..... 'I am SO fucked off and angry right now; you just don't know who you can trust!' 😠😡

Cue someone saying 'Wassup hun?'

And the reply is 'Can't say on here soz.'

Why fucking say anything then you utter, attention-seeking twunt?

And then there are those people who rabbit on about how amazing their relationship is, and post hideously soppy posts about how much they love their hubster! And those who think their children are the best children in the world, posting 50-60 pics a week of them. One woman I know posts pics of her breastfeeding her 4 y.o. child on there. I mean, WHY? I don't post pics of me feeding my cats.

And the people who rave about how amazing their grandkids are; posting loads of pics of them, and the ones who moan about everything, and give blow by blow accounts of their kidney transplant, or moan about their piles, and share EVERY last detail of their lives.

Then there are the weirdos.... One woman I know has posted something every day since a certain BIG pop star died several years ago, and says she still cries every night, as she has never felt love for ANY man like she feels for him. (Sucks for her husband eh?)

Whether it's moany and negative or whether it's saying their life is wonderful; they all share one common thing. they are huge attention-seekers and very needy and desperate for validation and 'likes' and 'hugs' and 'aww huns,' and all that bullshit!

My (adult) children rarely use it now, and even most of my relatives don't much either. Nor do my very close friends.. I am seriously thinking of deactivating mine. After 10 years. Never thought I would hear myself say that.

I have around 100 friends on facebook, and I only talk to about ten regularly on there. The other 90 or so are either

A) people I see and speak to in real life weekly or fortnightly anyway, (family/ colleagues/ friends,)

or

B) people who I have very little or nothing to do with anymore (like ex colleagues, friends I haven't seen for 3 or 4 years or more, and people I met through the games on there and have never even met in real life..)

So I am starting to find it somewhat pointless.

And yep I think it's had its day.

Oh and let's not forget the 'inspirational' memes, and the pic of a sad looking dog with 'I bet I don't get ONE share....' And 'if you have a caring bone in your body you will repost this/share this,' and people telling the world and his wife about their battle with a certain illness, and how they have overcome it, followed by a bunch of 'aww hun U dun amazing' type comments.

And also I see people begging for money on there too with a fundraising thing for their birthday, or a link to their gofundme page!

URGH! Why am I still on it?!

But that's not the fault of Facebook, that's just who you happen to have on your friends list.

I’m not blaming Facebook per se, but making the point that as interesting people leave the site, those that remain tend to be dull (online). I am friends on FB with many interesting people who don’t post, and many of those who do post rubbish on Facebook are quite nice in real life. The quality of one’s posting is not indicative of their value as a friend.

I went back to FB 18 months ago as I had the urge to reconnect with old friends. It works for me as I am very strict about who I have on my friends list and am happy to hide posts from people if necessary (mainly nephews who post cringy banter between each other when they are pissed). My privacy settings are at the max and I don’t befriend work colleagues or randoms. I’m a member of a couple of closed foodie groups which has inspired me to cook more from scratch and means that I don’t post food pics on my main feed. I’ve made new fb friends and met them in person and we also help each other out (e.g. couple of fb friends going through hard time so a group of us clubbed together to send hampers and stuff for the kids).

The feed issue and security scares are a concern though, but for now it’s fb or nothing for me (can’t bear Instagram and Twitter)

Maybe I’m just lucky in the friends and acquaintances I have 😁

It's definitely about how you use it. Every few days to check in with things for an hour whilst having a coffee? No problems. Updating every detail of your life, every time? Excessive use and likely to be interfering with other aspects of your life.

Facebook is very good for hobby groups but not much else.

For family pictures and news, we set up WhatsApp groups.

I noticed around a year ago that posting had declined dramatically. There are definitely still a ton of lurkers though, as they come out of the woodwork when I sporadically post big news or it's someone's birthday.

The only ones to blame are FB themselves - they've messed with the ability to see new posts so much that it's practically unusable. My feed is constantly full of 2-day old posts, while new stuff doesn't get shown at all.

It may have lost its novelty for people like us, but global use is growing because more and more people globally are getting internet access. So YABU.

The groups are very useful for community events, knowing why there's a massive traffic jam locally, hobbies etc as others have said.

The feed is more or less useless, I don't know why you can't just follow the people and pages you want to, in chronological order. It's really annoying and it's now happening in groups, too. I wondered why I kept seeing the same posts even though nothing new had been added to them, and then realised it was because the posts were appearing as " top posts". You can reset to recent, but then it switches back. What is the point.

And Twitter is trying to do the same. I still have the old set up but at some point I will be forced onto the new set up where it will be "top" rather than "recent". Why do they do this?

I binned it for a while but missed out on a lot of important information from the DC school, They seem to work on the assumption that everyone has facebook!

I never post anything on FB and all I use it for now is a kind of newsletter/commentary of my village community
Usually lost cats and parking issues

God but I hate that on Twitter @fairweathercyclist

Why is it so insistent that I see what they deem to be my top tweets? I want chronological order, but it insists on making me re-select that every few days. It drives me wild.

Ive stayed on it as there are a couple of local groups that I need to stay in touch with, relating to legal stuff. But my feed is dead boring. I never post anything on my own feed, and I've unfollowed virtually everyone I know as I got bored of the mundanities of life.

I also watched Carole Cadwalladr's Ted Talk and was pretty disgusted at FBs role in manipulating the Brexit referendum vote. I didn't realise that people actually got their "news" from social media - and in a way that is so open to manipulation. If I didn't need to be on it for these specific groups, I would close my account.

www.ted.com/talks/carole_cadwalladr_facebook_s_role_in_brexit_and_the_threat_to_democracy?language=en

I don’t mind my Facebook. I’ve unfollowed the irritating people, it keeps me in the loop with birthdays abd school related stuff and allows me to see info about my health condition as I e joined a few groups over the years.

I know lots of my friends use Instagram over Facebook but I’m not interested in taking selfies.

If old gits like me are on it, it must be going shit.
I'm in a couple of international groups - it's kinda nice to share ideas on a shared interest.

I like it. I like to use the groups - we have one for a new hobby I started which has been great to meet people.

I don’t post much but I have a baby so I am probably a bit of a babyspammer- most people I have on there also have young children so I like seeing updates.

A close friend also died recently and she was very active with social media so wrote a lot of nice things/ tagged photos which pops up on my memories to read- that means absolutely everything to me.

I also love marketplace and have got some good stuff second hand on there for DD.

Also forget to mention the groups- I am in a Bichon Frise group so my feed is basically all about dogs but I love it. 😂

Yes it’s got bloody boring. MLM inspirational quotes trying to sell you stuff. Finding out your old IL’s supports far right nutters (I’d rather not know). Over sharing your kids sporting achievements. Boring as fuck inspirational memes. Attention seeking “i’m In hospital again” posts or smug “i’ve Just left the country” or “look at my running route tonight”. Seriously, unless you managed to run a route in the shape of a cock I’m not interested.

DD, who is in her 20s, wouldn’t dream of using FB - it’s not a thing AT ALL with young people her age.

I lurk and like but very rarely post anything these days. Same with Twitter.

My younger girls who are in their teens are only into instagram and “updating their stories” or some such nonsense. I’ve tried Instagram but find it unspeakably dull tbh.

I still use MN though - although obviously it’s not as good as it used to be in the olden days.

Oh I hate twitter deciding what are 'top tweets' too.

And what also pisses me right off is CONSTANTLY seeing tweets from people I am not following, and not remotely interested in, because someone I AM following has liked/favorited one of their tweets, or retweeted it.

If I WANT to see these peoples tweets, I will follow them MYSELF!

Several people I follow, retweet other people tweets so often, that I have muted them, so their tweets, and anything they retweet or 'favorite' will not come up on my timeline.

Also, I kept getting TONS of tweets a couple of months ago about fucking Emmerdale. I am not remotely interested in it, but a dozen or so people I follow kept favoriting and retweeting posts from the official Emmerdale twitter.

So I had to block the official Emmerdale twitter account to stop the tweets. I was getting multiple dozens of Emmerdale tweets fired at me every time I logged on, even though I don't follow anything to do with Emmerdale, or any of the actors in it!!!

Apparently it's still the most popular social media site, so it can't be dead yet.

@MaMaMaMySharona

Using FB as photo storage is a really risky game. Firstly FB can use any of your photos if they want, which is unlikely, but potentially a problem depending on what you have on there.

Secondly, you are really vulnerable to losing everything - someone I know was hacked by a spammer who posted a lot of inflammatory things and had their account deleted and lost everything. No appeal, no way of getting back on, nothing from her account could be saved.

And what also pisses me right off is CONSTANTLY seeing tweets from people I am not following, and not remotely interested in, because someone I AM following has liked/favorited one of their tweets, or retweeted it

This happens on LinkedIn too, but it doesn't bother me on there, because it's a good way of finding out new things and maybe finding a new feed to follow. But on Twitter, gah. I have a plug in that stops all that nonsense on my laptop but it's more difficult to avoid on the app. It's a shame because I used to find Twitter really useful for work info and news but am beginning to get really bored with it now.

I disagree.

I go on once or twice a week and it still seems fresh