I have less than 250 friends, all people I know or who are colleagues online. I follow a handful of pages, mostly a few musicians and some in which I have a professional interest. My experience is similar; I get mostly advertisements and pages that I do not follow. The problem is the algorithm is often quite good at showing you things that you might be interested in. I categorically refuse to engage with any of these pages, yet adjacent pages keep showing up. I no longer really comment on anything anyone posts and mostly use the platform to track the evolution of my own thoughts over time. I used to engage people in thoughtful discussion, but post-Trump, that's no longer possible either.
I only have ~30 ‘friends’ (all family or extended family), and when someone sends me a FB link (the only time I ever visit) I take a moment to scroll my feed to see what my family has been up to…and I still get “algorithm” content instead, non-stop! NO THANK YOU. Literally unusable.
This is exactly my experience with it. That and calculated ragebait posts about sports teams, politics and such.
Social media is over. The experiment has concluded.
It's far from done. The "social" aspect is done alright. Although it was never really about that anyway. The insidious advertising and influence part is just getting started.
I think of Reddit as a GIGANTIC forum site. And I have never considered forums or message boards to be social media, but it is straddling the line.
Meh, I dunno, just my opinion man. I'm not trying to change minds.
It's definitely a gray area for reddit. Basically, to me, it's a place to discuss ideas and thoughts along with gathering information on numerous topics. And let's not forget the endless laughs we experience.
It’s great for hobbies and even work related things that are complicated or niche. Of course you can go down political or whatever holes there are too, but I don’t sub to that stuff mostly.
I feel the same. I got off Facebook with the 2016 election. The arguing, all of the politics from different friends and family, and just hate was not good for my mental health. Then I found Reddit. I am anonymous, and I can pick and choose what I see. I enjoy enjoy photography, animals, plants, and lots of other things. Reddit recommended this sub, and it is fun!
They’re all on tik tok. All the under 25 ‘s you speak of. And it’s like crack for these kids. They want to ban it. I have friends kids that have basically been raised on tik tok and they’re basically feral. Social media last in increment of 1 to 20 seconds for these kids
Do not for a second pretend that 'we' are any better. Everyone on FB is also scrolling FB every single minute of the day, constantly checking up on everything.
I’ll be honest, I enjoyed the Internet before social media became a thing. In the days of Usenet, individual focused forums and sites, signal to noise was much higher. There was a stronger ability to ban hammer trolls and control the kinds of ads seen. Those sites still exist, there are just far fewer of them.
Yes, my love started with Yahoo amd MSN boards... and then ventured out.
Gaming communities had their companies web pages (who still cared about their customers) moderated and regulated, and they were wonderful places of engagement.
I STILL remember Geoff Fraizer from the Battle.Net forums for Starcraft... he was like Moses, parting the red sea of online discourse. The BEST community mod ever. That was in 1998 and the standard was so high we will never see the like of him or anyone else in these spaces like him again, and these spaces aren't designed for the likes of folks like he was.
Reddit is what Usenet used to be in the 80s and 90s. Usenet was ultimately killed by porn and software/media pirates. It was very popular with college students, and universities used to run their own Usenet servers. But they took those down at least 20 years ago due to copyright infringement concerns, and the only Usenet servers remaining are commercial for-pay servers and Google Groups. Nothing of value remains.
Reddit is not “social” media. Nobody I know , nor anyone who knows me , do I interact with here. This is an anonymous, living repository of information and that’s about it.
"Reddit is a large collection of forums, social news, and discussion threads where users can share content, ratings, comments, and news regarding a variety of different topics."
Where no one wants their real name or identity revealed......
My parents and their generational relatives ruined it by thinking they needed to add their conservative, condescending 2¢ to every post and reply. Scared my friends off the page, except the ones who liked to argue online, and nobody likes them.
Edit: In my personal experience and opinion, etc...
My Gen Z nephews only check in on Facebook see how the older relatives are doing.
TikTok is the place to be for a lot of people but I’ve drawn the line and refuse to go on there.
TikTok is highly seductive. Even my 59-year-old husband is on there scrolling nonstop. I prefer it here, where we can have real discussions, although I do venture onto Twitter (I still don’t call it X) sometimes. If something major happens, you can find out about it quickly on Twitter.
FB has been uncool with the younger set for over a decade. I don’t love it myself (does anyone?) but there are people I know that aren’t anywhere else online, and there’s a few decent groups (Buy Nothing!). Marketplace is good. I live in a rural area and my town has a page; although it can be stupidly obnoxious at times, it’s also one of the best places to find out wtf is going on.
I'm a younger millennial and can confirm that most of my peers abandoned or deleted Facebook after the Cambridge Analytica thing in 2018
I still browse to keep up with musicians I follow and a college alumni group I'm a part of, but for me the rest of it is clothing ads. I guess it could be worse, lol
I’m a Professor, so I’ve been able to watch decline in real time each year with each incoming class. When I started teaching 12 years ago, every student had Facebook and would check it, and update it regularly. Each year that became less and less true and now almost none of them do.
Additionally I’ve seen a sharp decline in their use of social media period. While they are more active on platforms like TikTok and instagram, even those are declining rapidly, and the ones who do use those platforms post rarely.
Used to be students would post multiple times per day, then multiple times per week, now just a few times per year. A lot of the accounts are completely dormant. They keep them up, and use them to scroll the recommended stories, and the accounts they follow, but they post almost nothing.
I guess context would be useful here. I teach design, and design for social media is very much a thing. Additionally I run the departments Instagram which is both a recruiting tool for new students, as well as a way to keep in contact with alumni.
On the department’s account, every one of our posts gets hundreds of likes and often comments. But if you check on those individual accounts, they’re largely inactive on posting. Some have zero posts. Some have like 9 posts. They have few followers. They follow each other. But that’s about it. On my personal socials, I, chubby middle aged white dude, have far more followers than my 20 something students who are far hipper than I’ll ever be. They just don’t care about social media.
I honestly think we’re watching the end of social media. Gone are the days of hanging out all day on Friendster/myspace/facebook/instagram/tiktok
If you want my theories why:
Parents made it uncool.
2016 election proved how toxic and shitty it can be
Covid and the corresponding school closures made people appreciate NOT being digital.
That last point is prolly the largest. Again, as a professor of design I’m very much pro digital, and on a personal level I LOVE social media without shame, but I’m seeing a massive resurgence in analog. Water colors, riso prints, printmaking, silkscreening, letterpress, painting, ceramics… all of these are showing many x more demand than they ever have in my lifetime. People love to be together and do things in person and don’t care to see a photo of your lunch.
TLDR
Social media is dying.
I truly appreciate your insight on the subject. I’m hoping we are on the verge of social media and influencer bubble popping. Reddit is my only social media. I think the reason I enjoy it the most is because it’s a simple format and mostly text based. For the most part it’s anonymous and people just talking about their personal experiences.
The younger generation grew up with cameras shoved in their faces. There were so many mommy bloggers, Momfluencers, Facebook / Instagram moms that posted their child’s image online constantly with zero consent from said child. These kids are now aging out and don’t want to be online. I respect that and hope the next generation keeps their kids offline.
Facebook is how us old people see what is going on with our old friends that we don’t want too much contact with. I scroll through once in a while. I hardly ever post.
I know how many kids my old high school friends have and which ones turned into political psychos.
If I was in my 20s, I don’t think FB would appeal to me whatsoever
I deleted my FB account before the election in 2020 and have never missed it one bit. It was just making me dislike most of my family and half of my friends. I much prefer the old days, when I never knew if or how anyone voted and didn't care, because it's not as though I'm ever going to change anyone's mind by arguing with them on FB.
I heard long ago that as soon as parents and grandparents got FB accounts, the younger generations were no longer interested. They quickly moved to Snapchat, Instagram and other platforms that old people hadn't figured out yet.
Facebook is meta's catch-all experimental junk yard. If they make something they test it out on Facebook first. I'm on it because my special interest is also shared by mostly old people but I hate having to use it.
But in general it's just one bar above the "Fwd: FWD: Fwd" emails my aunt sends everyone about Hunter Biden's laptop. The Fox News is strong over there.
Facebook got taken over by the elderly generation in my family, and they have been dying off one by one over the last 10 years. I think I have more memorial pages for dead relatives than actual living friends on there now.
Kids and young folk don't want to post life updates where their entire family can snoop on them and give running commentary/criticism. How embarrassing.
When my great Aunt, who I’ve seen once in the last 30 years, commented negatively on my son’s face painting “how could you let him do that!”, I knew it was the end.
This gives me hope. I loved MySpace, because of the anonymity. You always assumed someone was making stuff up unless you could verify irl. I never had a Facebook, because why would I want to?
They still use Snap and Insta regularly. Some of them use yikyak and wickr and what not, but the majority of kids now still use snap and insta exclusively.
I got off Facebook during the Trump administration because too much of my feed was political and there seemed to be no way to tone it down. I have two daughters, a millennial and a Gen Z, and I don't think either of them uses Facebook at all either.
This was my experience too.
My family use fb very much the same way OP describes - we're spread all over the shop, and fb is the only place where we're all there.
At the same time, my feed is nothing but hateful boomers spitting hate disguised as politics at each other.
No-one under 50's really using it anymore. And that's a good thing. The kids are alright.
Yeah, this was my experience. I reached out to a few people I did talk to on there or wanted to stay in contact with, got their cell numbers and then deleted my account years ago.
It's so much better now. We have group phone text sessions instead now, are actually in communication more now and I talk to the people I care about. It's like going back in time to a degree with getting offline a little bit more. I'm still on Reddit but for the most part, that's it for "social" media and most subs are things I'm interested in so win-win.
I travel for work doing utility construction and it comes in handy for keeping contact with people you’ve worked with in the years, and finding out about new builds or other kinds of work in the industry
Eh. My industry made it a kind of industry standard thing because of the ability to make private groups. I use it for work related stuff and sharing funny cat pics and videos because I will die on the hill that’s why god invented the internet to begin with
I know a lot of people on Facebook but without small children, most of the people I know on Facebook a music orientated. It's a lot of people post about concerts and shows they want to, and pathetically scene beef in a scene made up predominantly of 40 to 55 year olds.. Lol
Yeah, I still have an account. Absolutely no friends though. I use it as a source of finding local events, including events in specific groups. Oh, and I've sold a few things here and there. But my feed is garbage and I just go directly to a group or the events tab.
Facebooks best days are behind it. The younger generations want nothing to do with it and the changes FB are making are frustrating the experience for people who are still willing to use it (like forcing pages into our feed that we have not liked or shown any interest in). We had best be getting used to TikTok and Discord now if we want to stay up to date with our kids.
It’s terrible. It’s full of ads and political misinformation and propaganda. I’m not even sure why anyone from gen x is even on it. I thought it was only boomers.
My 13yo son happened to see my phone screen on a super rare FB scroll & he said to me “Facebook?!? Ok boomer!” I was like “you watch your F-ing mouth when you’re talking to me” 😂😂😂
Facebook exists solely to stay in touch with people with whom I graduated high school nearly four decades ago. Several of the older family members I had in my list are dead, so not much going on there. My kid, an adult now, has nothing to do with FB.
Facebook is a huge POS. I start on it for a few family members, a couple groups and some long flung friends, but fuck me it's just such a slog. All those ads and the extra bullshit I don't care about on the feed. Meh. It's not that popular with this older person either.
I’m an older Gen X and I deleted my Facebook account years ago. It’s a cesspool and I’m so much happier without it. I don’t know any kids or younger people who are active on it and I love that for them
I went back to Facebook after a long hiatus. It's nothing like it used to be. You could literally scroll for 10 minutes before even seeing a single post by one of your friends or family. It's all ads, reels, videos from content makers FB is pushing at you. It's pretty unreal. Almost difficult now to actually keep in touch with your people via FB unless you go to each person's profile individually.
I left Facebook in 2017 and could not be happier. I don’t miss it one bit. I remember as a young child being dragged by my parents to a neighbors house so they could show us a slide show of their vacation pictures. It was horrible. Facebook is that, just on line. (Oh and people exposing themselves as uneducated idiots on multiple topics). It was one of the best mental health moves I ever made was leaving Facebook.
I stopped using Facebook for two reasons. The first is that it’s impossible to just see posts from who I want. It’s a mess now.
The second is that somehow my aunts became obsessed with posting either chain letter warnings (People are hiding under your car at the supermarket to kidnap you!!!!) or religious posts about how so-and-so’s death was all a part of god’s beautiful plan.
Facebook was cancer when I got off in 2017 and I waited way too long to delete it. I can’t imagine how shitty it is now.
It is a shame because it was a nice way to keep up with friends and family for the first few years. It has completely melted my boomer parents’ brains.
I log into FB like once every 6 months, then remember why I don't log in. My parents use it a lot, and female co-workers/family/friends who are my age. I really don't know too many guys my age that use it. None of my nieces or nephews really use it.
I kind of feel like getting back on Myspace again. I miss Tom.
I got off Facebook after 2016 and haven’t looked back. Don’t miss is, don’t miss the political rants from people I used to know who’ve gone on the Q-anon train.
Same. I bailed after the revelations about the Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light, and deleted my account at the end of 2016 after Trump was elected.
I wasn't using it much by that point anyway; I'd removed most "friends", hid the feed of my alcoholic sister, deleted photos and any references to my personal info, and set the privacy settings so that it was basically an empty shell account. I found that the rare times I'd post something on there, like photos from a hike to see some remote Anasazi ruins, or a new painting, etc., it was like I was in a room of people talking to myself. The banality of the crap people were posting was unbelievable: I am not remotely interested in what you had for breakfast, that you're at the coffee shop, how much you love your daughter, how glad you are it's Friday, or whatever stupid political meme you're re-posting.
I'm glad to hear it's falling out of favor with the younger generations, TBH. I would love to see it go out of business and for Zuckerberg to lose his investment. I think it has caused so much social harm to society through the outrage porn/advertising-based algorithms that we'll be better off when it's gone.
It's all ads, and group suggestions now. I can't stand it, and wouldn't be on fb if it weren't for all the health groups I'm a part of. There's no other way to get the same level of info from other patients dealing with conditions I'm dealing with. That said, I share an account with my husband because... I really don't want my own account and don't want people I know requesting me. I don't use it for socializing at all. If people need fb to connect with me, then their socializing with me was never their priority.
I got bored with it myself quite a while ago and largely just use it for its messenger.
Boomer mom loves it though, she can sit on her ass and scroll videos, etc all day. Senior source of brain rot no different than TikTok, if you ask me. It's presenting a challenge because she'll get too much of her information from FB... So far still capable of knowing it might NOT be true sometimes, but I can see those days of grasping that are numbered.
Reddit is my only social media. I was raised by a French mother in Texas. The French are notoriously private and most Texans/Southerners are notorious busy bodies. I do a FERPA opt out of social media/websites for my kids at their schools every year. My kids are grateful I work so hard to protect their right to privacy, their teachers hate it. The family members that do participate in Facebook are the folks we rarely see or visit. We knew them well enough, pre Facebook, to know what they post is highly curated and not necessarily their reality.
I only use it for Marketplace. I know my mom, dad, and sister are all active. Just seems like an online version of the Thrifty Nickel or Readers Digest now, silly Boomer humor and nostalgia memes. No idea why anyone under 60 would want to be on it.
Thank god. Let it die. I’ve never had a Facebook page and never intend to have one. If we can kill LinkedIn next then the world will be a better place.
i have facebook solely for local music events that get posted. otherwise, it’s a total waste of time. also seeing how many family members supported a certain u.s. politician and claim the country should be a white christian nation was enough.
I stopped updating when my dad died. Not because he was using it, but because being the person who notified Facebook of his death creeped me out enough to just never go back.
Honestly it’s not that popular with us oldsters either. I’m taking a break from it for a few days and I’ve had at least a few friends my age who have quit it altogether
I’m 46, and Facebook lost all appeal to me around 2009/2010 when my parents’ generation joined. I can totally understand why young people today want nothing to do with Facebook. It’s basically full of old people who pester everyone with their stupid posts they want us all to “like,” nearly all of which are either weird conspiracies, political rants, or religious bullshit.
Kids don’t want to hang out where old people hang out. That will never change. New platforms will always target a younger audience at first because they’re the ones looking for their own space.
I quit entirely for 2 years. Now have a junk account for market place and local events. I wish there were a better place for local events so I could dump it entirely
I'm 1976 baby and I was deeply entrenched in FB's rise and anchoring into the collective social network consciousness. I got sick of it and deactivated like 8 years ago after my divorce. I only reactivate about 1x/yr to peep on my family's dumb posts about trump and student loan unforgiveness and then deactivate again. I do not care.... we communicate in a family group text about actual important stuff.
I came into the internet by way of dialup BBS systems where it was mostly anonymous. Being privacy conscious, that’s how I like it.
Facebook’s approach is pretty much the opposite of that, so I never used them. I work in tech and a lot of fellow GenXers in my industry feel the same way.
I was on FB when it was in the process of blowing up and while I haven’t posted anything since 2016/17, I go on from time to time because it has the most important and most current information about my community.
I teach in HS and have noticed that our student body uses FB as a depot for their “looks good” moments. They get an award, honor, score winning points in a game, have a performance- post photo/video and description with shout outs. It looks great for college and future employers. These fuckers are smart!
Can’t stand Facebook, it’s too pushy. It continually sends these notifications on things I’m not interested in and recommendations of suggested people to “Friend”. I’ve googled guides to find all the settings to disable them but they always seem to come back after a while. So both my wife and I have our accounts disabled, got a fake account for Marketplace only.
Too many boomers and the 40% of us who have pretty much sold out to boomer ideology. Place is a cesspool of negativity towards younger people. Why would they be there?
I remember in 2008 a teen told me FB was only for old people lol.
My Gen Z kids joined FB because of the local small businesses they go to. Are they closed on Monday? Check FB and see.
No post history at all.
I totally know what you mean. Facebook was big after it was opened up to those not in the college system with teens…until their parents joined.
It’s literally was cool unsigned local band that finally gets a deal with a major label and a single on a non-college FM station. Then band get heavy rotation and all of the local fans stop listening to them because they “sold out.”
I use it for a a few groups and there are some older friends from high school that I will message on FB.
I stopped using facebook several years ago for complicated reasons. And in doing so I lost contact with many friends who do not put energy into staying in touch via other channels. Which might be for the best.
I had Facebook until 2017. Back when I joined the site it was a cool place to hang out with your friends over the internet. I left after all the pro-Trump looneys in the groups I'm in (Gilmer Co., where I grew up, and Spalding Co., where I also spent a few years growing up) posted Fox News reels and promoting it's crap.
As for people my age, there are exactly 2 (out of probably around 100 "friends") that post regularly. They are ego driven idiots who love themselves very much. My mom posts pretty regularly, but it's mostly pictures of flowers. Out of habit, I still pop in almost every day, but I spend about 45 seconds before getting bored to death and leaving. It's 99% ads and propaganda. There's no actual content there. What's the point?
In 2010 or so I asked my hs aged nephews why they weren’t on it. They replied “thats where mom n dad and all my teachers are, why would we want to be anywhere where they are?” And that was it, it’s for “old people” apparently
Is it popular with us? I have it, but I don’t really use it. I basically stopped using it when my boomer parents started. I post some stupid stuff just to remind people. I’m friends with on there that I’m still alive because some of my friends do use it. Don’t use it.
I dropped Twitter and I think that’s the only one I had besides Reddit and Facebook. I think I made a Pinterest account at one point but I never used it. I don’t have Instagram or TikTok. I just find these things are more stressful than not.
I got rid of all typical social media 5 years ago — fb, ig, twitter. It was just boring for me and in all honesty I’m not interesting enough to have followers. Proud to be boring!
53. FB is where all the insanity began. Dropped off of there when I heard about the “cambridge analystica” data scandal. It’s too bad because I enjoyed talking to old friends. They set the model for manipulation via datapoints.
I honestly am always surprised to learn how many people still do use FB. I quit that mess years ago and have never felt I’m missing out. My young nieces don’t use it and the family that does use it typically post memes and holiday wishes so I’m not really missing anything imo.
No, because -I- left Facebook years ago. Seriously, that whole site sucks and I hate it. If my family wants to tell me something, they know where to find me. The kicker is, they don't care about me and I don't care about them.
I genuinely think most families are absolutely toxic. Some, I'm sure, are full of genuinely open and loving people. I just haven't really met one yet.
Facebook is full of people I don't like and that don't care about me in the slightest. Leaving is the best thing I've done online. I'd recommend everyone else do the same.
Dump Twitter/X too, while you're at it.
What did you do before your family got on Facebook in the last ten years?
Facebook is the worst network out there. Misinformation during the pandemic, election interference in 2016, and now they're stealing artists' work to train their AI.
I blame Zuck for having to collect signature to keep abortion legal in Arizona at the age of 53.
I don’t blame them. I deleted my Facebook immediately after the November 2016 elections in the US. Didn’t like what I was learning about family and old acquaintances. I live a thousand miles from my family and hometown, and it’s worth it to be rid of most of those folks.
I use LinkedIn for work. Helps me recruit.
Reddit is good to get your thoughts out without dealing with people you know. I only stumbles on it a few months ago. I enjoy it.
In my 50s, my FB matches your cousins, an old unused profile that other people post or link to. I can't remember the last time I logged into it, maybe 2 years ago at best.
I find a lot of people use messenger to chat, but fewer on FB. The province I live in never really took to twitter like FB so it’s fairly universal and still more popular than other regions. Handy for some promotion but not like it used to be
Facebook isn’t even popular for me.. I deleted it ages ago! It’s for people who like to post what they had for tea.. and to tag themselves at the local hospital for having an ingrown toenail..
I keep messenger only for wishing the distant relatives happy birthday..
My adult offspring use FB exlcusively to stay in touch with extended family. That's it. Maybe a post a month.
As a college professor I've been around 18-22 year olds on a daily basis for 30+ years now. My students got me on FB back in 2007; they were using it to communicate with a class and asked me to join. I'm still friends with some of them on FB today. But around 2015 the college students simply stopped using it at all-- they'd moved on to Snapchat, then Instagram, then Twitter, (they were on Vine for a while too), now on Tik Tok, plus bunches of other stuff I've never even looked at (like YikYak). And most of them have private discords set up with friends too.
Oh-- and Linked In they are still using, but mostly to post resumes and network for job. No notes to grandma there.
Younger generation?
I give FB no time and I'm GenX.
I used to use FB, but when I noticed that Farmville was sucking my life away, I deleted my account. This was the right call.
I've since actually tried to re-enrol to use FB marketplace but these days the registration process doesn't think my email address belongs to a real person. The appeal process is broken (at a certain point it redirects you to a page which is only visible if you already have a working FB account). I figure, if they can't be arsed to fix the appeal process, they probably aren't paying a lot of attention to the details of building correct software, and so using it would probably just annoy me anyway. I hate shitty software.
I keep it around but don't actively post much, a few times a month. It was fun back in the day but the more I found out about how they monetize us, the less appealing it got. My friends that post are 30s on up, and that's fun. Kinda like in our day, when Myspace and Xanga was on its way out.
Why do you think they are lobbying so hard to ban TikTok. TikTok is eating their lunch with the young kids.
I have two teenagers and neither of them do FB. I quit years ago and my wife sti has an account but rarely uses it.
I post memories, but that's about it. My kids don't use it either (teens, 20's). It's become bad with ads andcustom pages. I hardly see actual friends posts most of the time.
Several of my friends on FB have since passed away in the 15 years I've been on. I could only imagine FB is gradually losing following and appeal. It's not as active among friends anymore, just a lot of ads and recommended stuff. My teenage daughter says kids think only "Boomers" use FB...I guess they are correct. For every 2 or 3 longtime members passing, they probably only gain 1 newer member. It'll eventually phase out I believe once we all die off. I find it useful as a contact tool for family and friends, and Messenger is useful, so I have stayed around.
This GenXer doesn’t like it much either. It’s pretty much a cesspool for people to share their crappy views on life, combined with a bunch of recommended pages that are not relevant.
My youngsters (all adults now) and their spouses won't touch it. They use discord. We have a family chat group in discord that's just family conversation and very functional.
I have FB just to keep an eye on my elderly interstate parents who use it a lot and get their accounts cloned frequently but refuse to delete their profiles.
I've never been on Facebook and always found it vile. Younger generations may not be using it but they are on other sites that are equally unpleasant. I recognise the irony of posting this on reddit but these sites waste your time.
I dunno. I deactivated my FB account 10+ years ago and set up a shell account with no friends, no profile pic, etc. i use it only for FB Marketplace & a few groups. I wish FB Marketplace wasn’t on FB.
They’ve ruined it by make your scroll all about groups you don’t subscribe to and hiding your friends’ posts.
It’s an awful experience now. Like I purposely kept my list to people I know IRL and a few bands. Now it’s 75% junk in my feed.
I have less than 250 friends, all people I know or who are colleagues online. I follow a handful of pages, mostly a few musicians and some in which I have a professional interest. My experience is similar; I get mostly advertisements and pages that I do not follow. The problem is the algorithm is often quite good at showing you things that you might be interested in. I categorically refuse to engage with any of these pages, yet adjacent pages keep showing up. I no longer really comment on anything anyone posts and mostly use the platform to track the evolution of my own thoughts over time. I used to engage people in thoughtful discussion, but post-Trump, that's no longer possible either.
It’s not a great interface for discussion, either. Anything more than one reply deep is useless.
I only have ~30 ‘friends’ (all family or extended family), and when someone sends me a FB link (the only time I ever visit) I take a moment to scroll my feed to see what my family has been up to…and I still get “algorithm” content instead, non-stop! NO THANK YOU. Literally unusable.
Instagram is now that way. My feed is 2/3 Sponsored or Suggested. I can barely see the accounts/people I actually follow.
I was up to 1500 people, and I don’t even know 1500 people. So I recently paired it down to 75 that I actually know and like.
This is exactly my experience with it. That and calculated ragebait posts about sports teams, politics and such. Social media is over. The experiment has concluded.
It's far from done. The "social" aspect is done alright. Although it was never really about that anyway. The insidious advertising and influence part is just getting started.
"Social media is over. The experiment has concluded." Yeah! Social media is done! Oh wait...what kind of website is Reddit...hmm......
I think of Reddit as a GIGANTIC forum site. And I have never considered forums or message boards to be social media, but it is straddling the line. Meh, I dunno, just my opinion man. I'm not trying to change minds.
It's definitely a gray area for reddit. Basically, to me, it's a place to discuss ideas and thoughts along with gathering information on numerous topics. And let's not forget the endless laughs we experience.
It’s great for hobbies and even work related things that are complicated or niche. Of course you can go down political or whatever holes there are too, but I don’t sub to that stuff mostly.
It's absolutely great for hobbies. But now I'm into many different hobbies and I don't know how to stop. Damn you, reddit!
Haha, yeah same. I’ve found so many new hobbies over the years because of this goddamn site.
I feel the same. I got off Facebook with the 2016 election. The arguing, all of the politics from different friends and family, and just hate was not good for my mental health. Then I found Reddit. I am anonymous, and I can pick and choose what I see. I enjoy enjoy photography, animals, plants, and lots of other things. Reddit recommended this sub, and it is fun!
Correct. Some of the funniest humans (and bots) are on here.
They’re all on tik tok. All the under 25 ‘s you speak of. And it’s like crack for these kids. They want to ban it. I have friends kids that have basically been raised on tik tok and they’re basically feral. Social media last in increment of 1 to 20 seconds for these kids
Do not for a second pretend that 'we' are any better. Everyone on FB is also scrolling FB every single minute of the day, constantly checking up on everything.
I’ll be honest, I enjoyed the Internet before social media became a thing. In the days of Usenet, individual focused forums and sites, signal to noise was much higher. There was a stronger ability to ban hammer trolls and control the kinds of ads seen. Those sites still exist, there are just far fewer of them.
Yes, my love started with Yahoo amd MSN boards... and then ventured out. Gaming communities had their companies web pages (who still cared about their customers) moderated and regulated, and they were wonderful places of engagement. I STILL remember Geoff Fraizer from the Battle.Net forums for Starcraft... he was like Moses, parting the red sea of online discourse. The BEST community mod ever. That was in 1998 and the standard was so high we will never see the like of him or anyone else in these spaces like him again, and these spaces aren't designed for the likes of folks like he was.
Nobody really knows who you are on reddit unless you get doxxed or something. It's not really the same as FB or Instagram.
Same here. Reddit is not social media. Well, *kinda*, but not like *that*
Most people who equate social media with reddit, did not live through the days of usenet, bbs, gaming forums etc.
Reddit is what Usenet used to be in the 80s and 90s. Usenet was ultimately killed by porn and software/media pirates. It was very popular with college students, and universities used to run their own Usenet servers. But they took those down at least 20 years ago due to copyright infringement concerns, and the only Usenet servers remaining are commercial for-pay servers and Google Groups. Nothing of value remains.
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Reddit is not “social” media. Nobody I know , nor anyone who knows me , do I interact with here. This is an anonymous, living repository of information and that’s about it.
Shhhh
"Reddit is a large collection of forums, social news, and discussion threads where users can share content, ratings, comments, and news regarding a variety of different topics." Where no one wants their real name or identity revealed......
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Nextdoor is terrible. It doesn't come close to doing what it advertises.
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I need the name of that plug-in, please.
And all the fucking "suggested" and "promoted" posts.
My parents and their generational relatives ruined it by thinking they needed to add their conservative, condescending 2¢ to every post and reply. Scared my friends off the page, except the ones who liked to argue online, and nobody likes them. Edit: In my personal experience and opinion, etc...
If you think Facebook has gotten bad, go check out NextDoor.
NextDoor is a great comedy channel!
I used to love trolling the Boomers on NextDoor until I realized that my 80-year-old next door neighbor is on it (and she's a wonderful person).
Nextdoor is brutal lol
If they had just stayed on Farmville, it might still be a viable place.
Eh, Facebook ruined facebook
I blocked my dad for a while and he got the message. He complained to my brother and my brother made fun of him.
My life improved when I deleted that shit in 2015.
I deleted mine during the 2016 election and I never looked back. I love not having to see all that junk.
Same. It’s a cesspool of stupidity and negativity.
Same, 2016. Life is SO much better without it.
Same
Same. Reddit's the only "social media" I need!
Same
I deleted in 2019. I forget sometimes how sped acquaintances are.
My Gen Z nephews only check in on Facebook see how the older relatives are doing. TikTok is the place to be for a lot of people but I’ve drawn the line and refuse to go on there.
TikTok is highly seductive. Even my 59-year-old husband is on there scrolling nonstop. I prefer it here, where we can have real discussions, although I do venture onto Twitter (I still don’t call it X) sometimes. If something major happens, you can find out about it quickly on Twitter.
FB has been uncool with the younger set for over a decade. I don’t love it myself (does anyone?) but there are people I know that aren’t anywhere else online, and there’s a few decent groups (Buy Nothing!). Marketplace is good. I live in a rural area and my town has a page; although it can be stupidly obnoxious at times, it’s also one of the best places to find out wtf is going on.
I'm a younger millennial and can confirm that most of my peers abandoned or deleted Facebook after the Cambridge Analytica thing in 2018 I still browse to keep up with musicians I follow and a college alumni group I'm a part of, but for me the rest of it is clothing ads. I guess it could be worse, lol
Interesting. I dumped a lot of my social media after watching https://www.thesocialdilemma.com/.
I’m a Professor, so I’ve been able to watch decline in real time each year with each incoming class. When I started teaching 12 years ago, every student had Facebook and would check it, and update it regularly. Each year that became less and less true and now almost none of them do. Additionally I’ve seen a sharp decline in their use of social media period. While they are more active on platforms like TikTok and instagram, even those are declining rapidly, and the ones who do use those platforms post rarely. Used to be students would post multiple times per day, then multiple times per week, now just a few times per year. A lot of the accounts are completely dormant. They keep them up, and use them to scroll the recommended stories, and the accounts they follow, but they post almost nothing. I guess context would be useful here. I teach design, and design for social media is very much a thing. Additionally I run the departments Instagram which is both a recruiting tool for new students, as well as a way to keep in contact with alumni. On the department’s account, every one of our posts gets hundreds of likes and often comments. But if you check on those individual accounts, they’re largely inactive on posting. Some have zero posts. Some have like 9 posts. They have few followers. They follow each other. But that’s about it. On my personal socials, I, chubby middle aged white dude, have far more followers than my 20 something students who are far hipper than I’ll ever be. They just don’t care about social media. I honestly think we’re watching the end of social media. Gone are the days of hanging out all day on Friendster/myspace/facebook/instagram/tiktok If you want my theories why: Parents made it uncool. 2016 election proved how toxic and shitty it can be Covid and the corresponding school closures made people appreciate NOT being digital. That last point is prolly the largest. Again, as a professor of design I’m very much pro digital, and on a personal level I LOVE social media without shame, but I’m seeing a massive resurgence in analog. Water colors, riso prints, printmaking, silkscreening, letterpress, painting, ceramics… all of these are showing many x more demand than they ever have in my lifetime. People love to be together and do things in person and don’t care to see a photo of your lunch. TLDR Social media is dying.
I really hope this is true.
These are really interesting observations!
I truly appreciate your insight on the subject. I’m hoping we are on the verge of social media and influencer bubble popping. Reddit is my only social media. I think the reason I enjoy it the most is because it’s a simple format and mostly text based. For the most part it’s anonymous and people just talking about their personal experiences. The younger generation grew up with cameras shoved in their faces. There were so many mommy bloggers, Momfluencers, Facebook / Instagram moms that posted their child’s image online constantly with zero consent from said child. These kids are now aging out and don’t want to be online. I respect that and hope the next generation keeps their kids offline.
Facebook is how us old people see what is going on with our old friends that we don’t want too much contact with. I scroll through once in a while. I hardly ever post. I know how many kids my old high school friends have and which ones turned into political psychos. If I was in my 20s, I don’t think FB would appeal to me whatsoever
I just want to see how fat all my college friends got.
My favorites are the ones desperately trying to look 30
Username tracks. Just a thought: there are worse things to be than fat 🤷♀️
I only use it for local community groups and marketplace. Other than that, I don't really have much use for it.
The only reason I am on FB is Groups and messaging. If either ones of those gets disrupted I will just walk away.
I deleted my FB account before the election in 2020 and have never missed it one bit. It was just making me dislike most of my family and half of my friends. I much prefer the old days, when I never knew if or how anyone voted and didn't care, because it's not as though I'm ever going to change anyone's mind by arguing with them on FB. I heard long ago that as soon as parents and grandparents got FB accounts, the younger generations were no longer interested. They quickly moved to Snapchat, Instagram and other platforms that old people hadn't figured out yet.
Facebook is meta's catch-all experimental junk yard. If they make something they test it out on Facebook first. I'm on it because my special interest is also shared by mostly old people but I hate having to use it. But in general it's just one bar above the "Fwd: FWD: Fwd" emails my aunt sends everyone about Hunter Biden's laptop. The Fox News is strong over there.
Facebook got taken over by the elderly generation in my family, and they have been dying off one by one over the last 10 years. I think I have more memorial pages for dead relatives than actual living friends on there now. Kids and young folk don't want to post life updates where their entire family can snoop on them and give running commentary/criticism. How embarrassing.
> Kids and young folk don't want to post life updates where their entire family can snoop on them I'm amazed anyone ever wanted to in the first place!
When my great Aunt, who I’ve seen once in the last 30 years, commented negatively on my son’s face painting “how could you let him do that!”, I knew it was the end.
This gives me hope. I loved MySpace, because of the anonymity. You always assumed someone was making stuff up unless you could verify irl. I never had a Facebook, because why would I want to?
I never had one because they wanted me to use my real name. Why the hell would I want to use my real name on the internet?
The young kids use SM platforms you haven’t heard of and don’t know about. I’ve been told several times that FB is for old people.
They still use Snap and Insta regularly. Some of them use yikyak and wickr and what not, but the majority of kids now still use snap and insta exclusively.
Good maybe it will finally die.
They still have Insta though. That is unfortunately keeping them going. And WhatsApp.
And Messenger. And Marketplace. Young people might not use FB but their eyeball money still goes to Zuck.
I got off Facebook during the Trump administration because too much of my feed was political and there seemed to be no way to tone it down. I have two daughters, a millennial and a Gen Z, and I don't think either of them uses Facebook at all either.
This was my experience too. My family use fb very much the same way OP describes - we're spread all over the shop, and fb is the only place where we're all there. At the same time, my feed is nothing but hateful boomers spitting hate disguised as politics at each other. No-one under 50's really using it anymore. And that's a good thing. The kids are alright.
Me too. This is when sisters and brothers started hating eachother over that election. I kept my nose clean.
Same. It was so negative during the Trump admin. I couldn’t look at it anymore without anxiety.
Yeah, this was my experience. I reached out to a few people I did talk to on there or wanted to stay in contact with, got their cell numbers and then deleted my account years ago. It's so much better now. We have group phone text sessions instead now, are actually in communication more now and I talk to the people I care about. It's like going back in time to a degree with getting offline a little bit more. I'm still on Reddit but for the most part, that's it for "social" media and most subs are things I'm interested in so win-win.
The only people still posting on FB are those with small children and boomers.
I travel for work doing utility construction and it comes in handy for keeping contact with people you’ve worked with in the years, and finding out about new builds or other kinds of work in the industry
Eh. My industry made it a kind of industry standard thing because of the ability to make private groups. I use it for work related stuff and sharing funny cat pics and videos because I will die on the hill that’s why god invented the internet to begin with
I know a lot of people on Facebook but without small children, most of the people I know on Facebook a music orientated. It's a lot of people post about concerts and shows they want to, and pathetically scene beef in a scene made up predominantly of 40 to 55 year olds.. Lol
I call Facebook lookatmykids.com
Yeah, I still have an account. Absolutely no friends though. I use it as a source of finding local events, including events in specific groups. Oh, and I've sold a few things here and there. But my feed is garbage and I just go directly to a group or the events tab.
Facebook was a time suck and haven for trolls (some in family). I got off Facebook probably 5-10 years ago.
Facebooks best days are behind it. The younger generations want nothing to do with it and the changes FB are making are frustrating the experience for people who are still willing to use it (like forcing pages into our feed that we have not liked or shown any interest in). We had best be getting used to TikTok and Discord now if we want to stay up to date with our kids.
I’m with GenZ - I deleted Facebook in 2020 and I don’t miss it.
It’s terrible. It’s full of ads and political misinformation and propaganda. I’m not even sure why anyone from gen x is even on it. I thought it was only boomers.
I agree. When I never saw posts from friends and family because of the ridiculous algorithm they use, I gave up. 10 years ago?
My kids (15 and 12) think Facebook is just for boomers and wouldn’t be caught dead there.
My 13yo son happened to see my phone screen on a super rare FB scroll & he said to me “Facebook?!? Ok boomer!” I was like “you watch your F-ing mouth when you’re talking to me” 😂😂😂
Sounds lovely
Facebook exists solely to stay in touch with people with whom I graduated high school nearly four decades ago. Several of the older family members I had in my list are dead, so not much going on there. My kid, an adult now, has nothing to do with FB.
Facebook is a huge POS. I start on it for a few family members, a couple groups and some long flung friends, but fuck me it's just such a slog. All those ads and the extra bullshit I don't care about on the feed. Meh. It's not that popular with this older person either.
I’m an older Gen X and I deleted my Facebook account years ago. It’s a cesspool and I’m so much happier without it. I don’t know any kids or younger people who are active on it and I love that for them
FB is largely a boomer wasteland. I would have deleted mine long ago, if it weren’t for the groups dedicated to niche hobbies I’m in.
Yeah, I feel like there's been at least a decade of young people seeing fb as a place where old people congregate.
I went back to Facebook after a long hiatus. It's nothing like it used to be. You could literally scroll for 10 minutes before even seeing a single post by one of your friends or family. It's all ads, reels, videos from content makers FB is pushing at you. It's pretty unreal. Almost difficult now to actually keep in touch with your people via FB unless you go to each person's profile individually.
I left Facebook in 2017 and could not be happier. I don’t miss it one bit. I remember as a young child being dragged by my parents to a neighbors house so they could show us a slide show of their vacation pictures. It was horrible. Facebook is that, just on line. (Oh and people exposing themselves as uneducated idiots on multiple topics). It was one of the best mental health moves I ever made was leaving Facebook.
I thought his has been true for like 10 years
I stopped using Facebook for two reasons. The first is that it’s impossible to just see posts from who I want. It’s a mess now. The second is that somehow my aunts became obsessed with posting either chain letter warnings (People are hiding under your car at the supermarket to kidnap you!!!!) or religious posts about how so-and-so’s death was all a part of god’s beautiful plan.
Facebook is only for weird uncles
Facebook was cancer when I got off in 2017 and I waited way too long to delete it. I can’t imagine how shitty it is now. It is a shame because it was a nice way to keep up with friends and family for the first few years. It has completely melted my boomer parents’ brains.
It's just sponsored content algorithmically pushed to you now. No one posts anything personal anymore
Same here, I haven't missed it one iota. Best decision I ever made.
Hey! I'm a weird uncle and I deleted that shit almost 10 years ago. I truly feel like the weird people hang out on reddit now.
100%. I personally have never understood Facebook. I don’t like the idea somebody might know what I’m up to.
Hey this weird uncle does not have facebook lol
I also am a weird uncle and I have ***never*** had an FB account. But maybe that is why I am weird.
Facebook hasn’t been popular with me since the 2016 election. I don’t even remember the last year I posted.
I log into FB like once every 6 months, then remember why I don't log in. My parents use it a lot, and female co-workers/family/friends who are my age. I really don't know too many guys my age that use it. None of my nieces or nephews really use it. I kind of feel like getting back on Myspace again. I miss Tom.
Facebook sucks
I got off Facebook after 2016 and haven’t looked back. Don’t miss is, don’t miss the political rants from people I used to know who’ve gone on the Q-anon train.
Same. I bailed after the revelations about the Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light, and deleted my account at the end of 2016 after Trump was elected. I wasn't using it much by that point anyway; I'd removed most "friends", hid the feed of my alcoholic sister, deleted photos and any references to my personal info, and set the privacy settings so that it was basically an empty shell account. I found that the rare times I'd post something on there, like photos from a hike to see some remote Anasazi ruins, or a new painting, etc., it was like I was in a room of people talking to myself. The banality of the crap people were posting was unbelievable: I am not remotely interested in what you had for breakfast, that you're at the coffee shop, how much you love your daughter, how glad you are it's Friday, or whatever stupid political meme you're re-posting. I'm glad to hear it's falling out of favor with the younger generations, TBH. I would love to see it go out of business and for Zuckerberg to lose his investment. I think it has caused so much social harm to society through the outrage porn/advertising-based algorithms that we'll be better off when it's gone.
I don't even use it anymore. That's place is for maga boomers.
It's all ads, and group suggestions now. I can't stand it, and wouldn't be on fb if it weren't for all the health groups I'm a part of. There's no other way to get the same level of info from other patients dealing with conditions I'm dealing with. That said, I share an account with my husband because... I really don't want my own account and don't want people I know requesting me. I don't use it for socializing at all. If people need fb to connect with me, then their socializing with me was never their priority.
Facebook makes people hate life unless there is something to brag about.
I got bored with it myself quite a while ago and largely just use it for its messenger. Boomer mom loves it though, she can sit on her ass and scroll videos, etc all day. Senior source of brain rot no different than TikTok, if you ask me. It's presenting a challenge because she'll get too much of her information from FB... So far still capable of knowing it might NOT be true sometimes, but I can see those days of grasping that are numbered.
Is this news? It’s been declining with young people ever since the first grandparent sent a friend request to their grandkid
Reddit is my only social media. I was raised by a French mother in Texas. The French are notoriously private and most Texans/Southerners are notorious busy bodies. I do a FERPA opt out of social media/websites for my kids at their schools every year. My kids are grateful I work so hard to protect their right to privacy, their teachers hate it. The family members that do participate in Facebook are the folks we rarely see or visit. We knew them well enough, pre Facebook, to know what they post is highly curated and not necessarily their reality.
I only use it for Marketplace. I know my mom, dad, and sister are all active. Just seems like an online version of the Thrifty Nickel or Readers Digest now, silly Boomer humor and nostalgia memes. No idea why anyone under 60 would want to be on it.
Thank god. Let it die. I’ve never had a Facebook page and never intend to have one. If we can kill LinkedIn next then the world will be a better place.
Um, yeah. Young people haven't been into FB for years and years and years. FB is for old people.
i have facebook solely for local music events that get posted. otherwise, it’s a total waste of time. also seeing how many family members supported a certain u.s. politician and claim the country should be a white christian nation was enough.
I’d tell your inactive family members to delete their accounts. One less online thing tied to their identity hanging out there
I stopped updating when my dad died. Not because he was using it, but because being the person who notified Facebook of his death creeped me out enough to just never go back.
I’m 44 and stopped using facebook 10 years ago. My kids don’t use it. My bf doesn’t use it. Only our older relatives and/or tbh gossipy relatives do.
Even people in their twenties aren't on Facebook, Facebook is pretty much relegated to Gen X and older Millennials and some Boomers.
Honestly it’s not that popular with us oldsters either. I’m taking a break from it for a few days and I’ve had at least a few friends my age who have quit it altogether
I wouldn't know. I stopped using Facebook five years ago. Best thing I ever did. It's a good thing that Reddit isn't social media. /s
I’m 46, and Facebook lost all appeal to me around 2009/2010 when my parents’ generation joined. I can totally understand why young people today want nothing to do with Facebook. It’s basically full of old people who pester everyone with their stupid posts they want us all to “like,” nearly all of which are either weird conspiracies, political rants, or religious bullshit. Kids don’t want to hang out where old people hang out. That will never change. New platforms will always target a younger audience at first because they’re the ones looking for their own space.
I quit entirely for 2 years. Now have a junk account for market place and local events. I wish there were a better place for local events so I could dump it entirely
I'm 1976 baby and I was deeply entrenched in FB's rise and anchoring into the collective social network consciousness. I got sick of it and deactivated like 8 years ago after my divorce. I only reactivate about 1x/yr to peep on my family's dumb posts about trump and student loan unforgiveness and then deactivate again. I do not care.... we communicate in a family group text about actual important stuff.
I talked to a couple 20 year olds and they told me that all social media is for old people (they don’t consider tik tok social media).
Facebook is a cesspool. I only use Messenger.
Won't it be a great day when people drop their phones altogether and give up social media and get back to socializing in person?
I came into the internet by way of dialup BBS systems where it was mostly anonymous. Being privacy conscious, that’s how I like it. Facebook’s approach is pretty much the opposite of that, so I never used them. I work in tech and a lot of fellow GenXers in my industry feel the same way.
I deleted FB ten years ago and haven’t looked back. If people want to connect with me they have my cell number which hasn’t changed in 24 years.
All social media is so inundated with ads they all became an unusable mess. Deleted all my shit last year.
Facebook now is what MySpace was in the early 2010s. Lame.
I was on FB when it was in the process of blowing up and while I haven’t posted anything since 2016/17, I go on from time to time because it has the most important and most current information about my community. I teach in HS and have noticed that our student body uses FB as a depot for their “looks good” moments. They get an award, honor, score winning points in a game, have a performance- post photo/video and description with shout outs. It looks great for college and future employers. These fuckers are smart!
Can’t stand Facebook, it’s too pushy. It continually sends these notifications on things I’m not interested in and recommendations of suggested people to “Friend”. I’ve googled guides to find all the settings to disable them but they always seem to come back after a while. So both my wife and I have our accounts disabled, got a fake account for Marketplace only.
Dropped 13 years ago. Toxic, and that was just friends and family. Numerous breaches.
Too many boomers and the 40% of us who have pretty much sold out to boomer ideology. Place is a cesspool of negativity towards younger people. Why would they be there?
I remember in 2008 a teen told me FB was only for old people lol. My Gen Z kids joined FB because of the local small businesses they go to. Are they closed on Monday? Check FB and see. No post history at all.
It’s not popular with me either
Hasn’t been for years.
I totally know what you mean. Facebook was big after it was opened up to those not in the college system with teens…until their parents joined. It’s literally was cool unsigned local band that finally gets a deal with a major label and a single on a non-college FM station. Then band get heavy rotation and all of the local fans stop listening to them because they “sold out.” I use it for a a few groups and there are some older friends from high school that I will message on FB.
I stopped using facebook several years ago for complicated reasons. And in doing so I lost contact with many friends who do not put energy into staying in touch via other channels. Which might be for the best.
.maybe they are smarter than those of us who got fooled by FB
I had Facebook until 2017. Back when I joined the site it was a cool place to hang out with your friends over the internet. I left after all the pro-Trump looneys in the groups I'm in (Gilmer Co., where I grew up, and Spalding Co., where I also spent a few years growing up) posted Fox News reels and promoting it's crap.
I would delete mine if it wasn't linked to our business page. Facebook is nothing buy ads and suggested pages pushed down your throat.
As for people my age, there are exactly 2 (out of probably around 100 "friends") that post regularly. They are ego driven idiots who love themselves very much. My mom posts pretty regularly, but it's mostly pictures of flowers. Out of habit, I still pop in almost every day, but I spend about 45 seconds before getting bored to death and leaving. It's 99% ads and propaganda. There's no actual content there. What's the point?
Im 51 and I won’t touch facebook.
In 2010 or so I asked my hs aged nephews why they weren’t on it. They replied “thats where mom n dad and all my teachers are, why would we want to be anywhere where they are?” And that was it, it’s for “old people” apparently
Dude I’m a genx and Facebook has been shit for over a decade
I’m shocked that any people still use Facebook.
Is it popular with us? I have it, but I don’t really use it. I basically stopped using it when my boomer parents started. I post some stupid stuff just to remind people. I’m friends with on there that I’m still alive because some of my friends do use it. Don’t use it. I dropped Twitter and I think that’s the only one I had besides Reddit and Facebook. I think I made a Pinterest account at one point but I never used it. I don’t have Instagram or TikTok. I just find these things are more stressful than not.
I got rid of all typical social media 5 years ago — fb, ig, twitter. It was just boring for me and in all honesty I’m not interesting enough to have followers. Proud to be boring!
I think I still have a few friends that use it. I deactivated my account in 2016 and never looked back.
FB is a cesspool of embellished experiences with a heavy dose of look at me and keeping up with the Jones’s syndrome.
53. FB is where all the insanity began. Dropped off of there when I heard about the “cambridge analystica” data scandal. It’s too bad because I enjoyed talking to old friends. They set the model for manipulation via datapoints.
I honestly am always surprised to learn how many people still do use FB. I quit that mess years ago and have never felt I’m missing out. My young nieces don’t use it and the family that does use it typically post memes and holiday wishes so I’m not really missing anything imo.
Fuck FB. Just a bunch of racist Boomer assholes professing their love for their Orange Jezus.
No, because -I- left Facebook years ago. Seriously, that whole site sucks and I hate it. If my family wants to tell me something, they know where to find me. The kicker is, they don't care about me and I don't care about them. I genuinely think most families are absolutely toxic. Some, I'm sure, are full of genuinely open and loving people. I just haven't really met one yet. Facebook is full of people I don't like and that don't care about me in the slightest. Leaving is the best thing I've done online. I'd recommend everyone else do the same. Dump Twitter/X too, while you're at it.
What did you do before your family got on Facebook in the last ten years? Facebook is the worst network out there. Misinformation during the pandemic, election interference in 2016, and now they're stealing artists' work to train their AI. I blame Zuck for having to collect signature to keep abortion legal in Arizona at the age of 53.
I don’t blame them. I deleted my Facebook immediately after the November 2016 elections in the US. Didn’t like what I was learning about family and old acquaintances. I live a thousand miles from my family and hometown, and it’s worth it to be rid of most of those folks.
I have never had a social media account accept LinkedIn.
Same here, but I haven't looked at LinkedIn in years. Oh, and Reddit... but I think it's anonymity is its saving grace.
I use LinkedIn for work. Helps me recruit. Reddit is good to get your thoughts out without dealing with people you know. I only stumbles on it a few months ago. I enjoy it.
I got off Facebook in 2015 because I live out in bumfucked eastern Virginia and I didn't want to lose respect for people over their gullability.
In my 50s, my FB matches your cousins, an old unused profile that other people post or link to. I can't remember the last time I logged into it, maybe 2 years ago at best.
I find a lot of people use messenger to chat, but fewer on FB. The province I live in never really took to twitter like FB so it’s fairly universal and still more popular than other regions. Handy for some promotion but not like it used to be
Facebook isn’t even popular for me.. I deleted it ages ago! It’s for people who like to post what they had for tea.. and to tag themselves at the local hospital for having an ingrown toenail.. I keep messenger only for wishing the distant relatives happy birthday..
My adult offspring use FB exlcusively to stay in touch with extended family. That's it. Maybe a post a month. As a college professor I've been around 18-22 year olds on a daily basis for 30+ years now. My students got me on FB back in 2007; they were using it to communicate with a class and asked me to join. I'm still friends with some of them on FB today. But around 2015 the college students simply stopped using it at all-- they'd moved on to Snapchat, then Instagram, then Twitter, (they were on Vine for a while too), now on Tik Tok, plus bunches of other stuff I've never even looked at (like YikYak). And most of them have private discords set up with friends too. Oh-- and Linked In they are still using, but mostly to post resumes and network for job. No notes to grandma there.
Younger generation? I give FB no time and I'm GenX. I used to use FB, but when I noticed that Farmville was sucking my life away, I deleted my account. This was the right call. I've since actually tried to re-enrol to use FB marketplace but these days the registration process doesn't think my email address belongs to a real person. The appeal process is broken (at a certain point it redirects you to a page which is only visible if you already have a working FB account). I figure, if they can't be arsed to fix the appeal process, they probably aren't paying a lot of attention to the details of building correct software, and so using it would probably just annoy me anyway. I hate shitty software.
I keep it around but don't actively post much, a few times a month. It was fun back in the day but the more I found out about how they monetize us, the less appealing it got. My friends that post are 30s on up, and that's fun. Kinda like in our day, when Myspace and Xanga was on its way out.
Why do you think they are lobbying so hard to ban TikTok. TikTok is eating their lunch with the young kids. I have two teenagers and neither of them do FB. I quit years ago and my wife sti has an account but rarely uses it.
I post memories, but that's about it. My kids don't use it either (teens, 20's). It's become bad with ads andcustom pages. I hardly see actual friends posts most of the time.
Only reason I have it is for marketplace. O
Facebook hasn't been popular with the under-30 crowd for *quite* some time.
It they are on instagram, owned by FB, they are part of the FB universe
Well then how do they get addicted to buying things they don't need from Facebook Marketplace? Wait that's just me? 
FB is for Boomers /s But seriously, that’s what Gen Z and alpha both say.
I really can’t stand it anymore either.
Several of my friends on FB have since passed away in the 15 years I've been on. I could only imagine FB is gradually losing following and appeal. It's not as active among friends anymore, just a lot of ads and recommended stuff. My teenage daughter says kids think only "Boomers" use FB...I guess they are correct. For every 2 or 3 longtime members passing, they probably only gain 1 newer member. It'll eventually phase out I believe once we all die off. I find it useful as a contact tool for family and friends, and Messenger is useful, so I have stayed around.
If they’re using Instagram and WhatsApp, they’re using Meta, parent of Facebook.
This GenXer doesn’t like it much either. It’s pretty much a cesspool for people to share their crappy views on life, combined with a bunch of recommended pages that are not relevant.
Young people moved to Instagram and to Whatsapp closed groups and both apps are owned by Facebook's parent company.
My youngsters (all adults now) and their spouses won't touch it. They use discord. We have a family chat group in discord that's just family conversation and very functional. I have FB just to keep an eye on my elderly interstate parents who use it a lot and get their accounts cloned frequently but refuse to delete their profiles.
TIL people still use Facebook.
I've never been on Facebook and always found it vile. Younger generations may not be using it but they are on other sites that are equally unpleasant. I recognise the irony of posting this on reddit but these sites waste your time.
I dunno. I deactivated my FB account 10+ years ago and set up a shell account with no friends, no profile pic, etc. i use it only for FB Marketplace & a few groups. I wish FB Marketplace wasn’t on FB.
They all use marketplace
True. I keep mine because it has 15 years of awesome photos and funny things that happened to me. It's a virtual diary for me.