To think facebook is dying out?

[Middleagednbored]

Been on it for years, have a couple of hundred friends on there. Over the past few years, I've noticed that only a handful post regularly now, the rest post rarely, if ever. I've realised some haven't posted for years! There are a few who until a year or so ago posted regularly and I liked keeping up with their lives but now seem to have stopped. I have definitely cut down on my posts too. A year ago, I would average twice a week, now it's twice a month if that. What's the point if no one is reading? I do actually like seeing the memories come up and how people I don't see much anymore are getting on but these days it's so boring. Mostly ads. I'm in a few groups (hobbies, interests, local community) which are useful but otherwise it's so dead!

Do we think Facebook will fizzle put altogether over the next few years? I don't do Instagram or twitter and don't understand tik tok etc (too old 🤣).

FB.. No, gave it up years ago, just not interested in some of the crap people put on it.
Insta and Twitter "X" I check out occasionally but don't post that often.

I pretty much use it just for FB Marketplace

I use it, I post everyone couple of weeks or so, as do a lot of friends and family. As an example I recently had a couple of big life events and of 140 contacts about 90 responded. So no, not dying in my circles. And I hate instagram!

Was just talking about this with friends the other day - none of us post anymore and only pop on occasionally, usually just to check notifications and the local page. It seems so cringey now to post photos of yourself or tell everyone about your fabulous life. The reason for the conversation is because one of our mutual friends had posted and we wondered whether they'd been hacked as it was so unusual to see now! I use Instagram more but don't follow friends on there, I use it to follow public figures (and puppies, and baby pandas...) but there are more adverts and 'suggested' than posts from people I follow. Luckily the 'suggested' posts are usually of puppies or baby pandas so I'm happy enough. I never post on that either.

Same.
I was also angry at myself for allowing my guard to drop by posting photos etc. I deleted the entire account in the end.
Yes I think it’s dying off as I’m told it’s quiet these days among people I know.

But is that only people who regularly engage with it (and how do you determine that?) or does it also include those who signed up years ago and never use it now - or indeed signed up once to see what all the fuss was about and then instantly decided that they didn't want to make it a part of their life?

If I ran a restaurant, I'd much rather have 30 people who regularly came to eat there with their families and friends, rather than 30,000 who just like to look at the menus but never darken my doors!

I signed up when I got my first smartphone (Windows Phone!) and used it now and again for a year or two, but I personally found that it became vexatious to my soul and so decided to abandon it and was far, far happier. No criticism whatsoever of those who do like and value it, but it wasn't for me. Having said that, I never actually deleted my account, so I probably still show up in the official stats as a 'user'!

All I ever (inadvertently) use it for now is if I search for a business or organisation and that's their only online presence that comes up - so I can find a phone number, opening times, menus or whatever. I never log in.

I use it for groups. rarely if ever post on my wall or share stuff from my daily life, and never have. I am in quite a few craft and similar groups and they are growing massively.

MySpace fizzled out when Facebook came along.

Now there is TikTok. So you never know. By the end of this decade Facebook might go the same way.

I think, since FB began, more and more people have been becoming a lot more aware of privacy concerns - and how anything you post online will stay there forever and can be used against you (or to exploit you).

People who would never have dreamed of signing up to those spurious 'surveys' they used to put in magazines - which incorporated a prize draw and asked loads of detailed questions for your 'opinions' or likes and dislikes and it was patently obvious that they were just trying to data-mine you for how to market to you - are slowly realising that FB is just a much more modern, sophisticated version of exactly the same thing. It doesn't just hop in and grab a few vague clues here and there from what you post; that is its entire reason for existing.

The younger age demographic who may still not yet be as savvy about the dangers of posting your entire life online see FB as for (to them) 'old people' and are heading straight for TikTok. FB is still going strong for now, but it won't endure forever.

It's interesting how opinions are so split between "dying and has been for years" and "just as active as ever".

I wonder if it's location dependent as well as age dependent.

Most of my Facebook feed is clogged up with adverts, AI fake images and random group feeds from 'dry robe wankers' and 'parking like a twat'.

The more of those you hide (just click the X) the fewer you see.

Try using your friends feed…

Hasn't friends feed been blocked? I used to use that all the time but now it doesn't seem to exist.

Yes, or that.

I can see why people get frustrated by all the ads and spammy stuff, but the settings allow you to just see posts from friends.

It’s on my phone, but weirdly not my iPad. Or not in the same place and I haven’t found it. I just use my phone in the morning to catch up with friends over a cuppa.

I have deleted the app from my phone because all my news feed seems to be is ads and posts from pages of no relevance (i.e. Manchester News - I live in Northern Ireland) or posts from suggested pages. I can't actually see what my "friends" are posting. I'm reluctant to delete my Account completely as I have lots of photos and a connection to my late father's Facebook page. There seems to be no way of managing the news feed as the app updates and changes so regularly.

Another one who only uses it for local info, especially as I have young kids. It’s been useful to find baby groups, to know about local issues, and we have a local ‘swap group’ where we give free unwanted items to neighbours.

The only people I know who post a lot are really unhappy in real life.

I’m trying to get my mum to stop wasting her retirement by doomscrolling.

I’m also proud to have never joined insta or tiktok.

I've joined lots of groups and now my feed is full of interesting (to me) things. Holiday destinations, gardening, interiors, local history, lots of other niche history groups! My fav music, old and new. Fav film stars from the classic era. Ghost stories. Lots of nostalgia. Quite like FB because of this.
Lots of friends don't seem to post much these days. I post 5 times a year maybe.

I only use it for marketplace, in fact I'd deactivate it if it wasn't for marketplace.

They changed it to push algorithmic stuff over friends' content about 2 years ago , which made it useless to me effectively. I like to look over my memories from every day but I don't post on it anymore and 2 years ago cut down to just friends for whom FB is my main source of contact with them.

It's basically unusable now, which is shame. When I tell people I've stopped using it a lot say 'Oh yeah, I was much happier when I stopped using FB', but I am actually sad about it as it was genuinely useful for me - I only followed friends and family, no one whose opinions would annoy me, and I have a disparate friend group so it was great to have one place where I could keep up with almost all of them. But then 40-60% of my feed became adverts, recommended pages that had nothing to do with my interests, and I wasn't seeing my contacts' content. And now it's got even worse - other than memories I only look now to see how much weird, crappy AI stuff pops up, it's just bizarre and I think marks the total death knell. Loads of weird pics of Jesus riding a crab, or a child who has made a model aeroplane out of eggs, or sad dogs and puppies in mud, or a 'realistic' horse-shaped cake - all liked by bots or boomers who don't get that it's all AI generated. 🙄

Honestly, FB would do better to adopt a strategy of aiming at boring old Gen Xs like me and boomers wirth a low monthly fee to get it back without the algorithmic bullshit and I expect they'd still get enough users to make millions every month.

Agreed, its crap now.

No one posts and the feed is full of tiktok and Instagram drivel or ads.

It was great between 2007 & 2012 or so. Been headed for the bin ever since.

I bloody hope not. I get about 50% of my customers from there 😂

Yup my teenage niece told me Facebook is just for old people 😂

Exactly this. It's shifted to groups with common interests rather than friends and family.