The Beginning of the End for Facebook?
Not using Facebook as much as you used to? You’re not the only one. We all secretly knew this day would come–the day you didn’t need to login to Facebook to feel complete. We all knew Facebook could someday be replaced by the next big thing. But were we expecting the decline to come so soon?! Whether or not you’re still logging into Facebook everyday, or every hour, new studies have shown that Facebook usage is way down and that shockingly, people have gone on with their lives.
According to comScore, in September 2011, the average number of minutes each US Facebooker spent on the site was 410. Last year, that number dropped way down to 287. All this at a time when Facebook has been responding to negative press about their privacy and is heading for an IPO. While these range on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of excitement, I would bet that all of this is playing into the usage decline. People have become weary and far less trusting than back in the good ole days.
But an even bigger deal for Facebook is that people might just be ready to move on. In the digital day and age that we’re living in, we expect new and exciting all of the time. So while Facebook may have been all the rage a few years ago, maybe we’re simply ready for something new. “I recently polled almost 500 high school students in San Jose, and shockingly, not all of them were on Facebook. But perhaps not surprisingly, nearly all who were said they were basically bored with the site and had been using it significantly less,” explains Ben Bajarin, author of this article.
Whether it is because the public has become untrusting, or whether we have become jaded, none of it really matters. What it ultimately comes down to is that Facebook may have already seen its glory days. Of course, they are always innovating and always pulling some new trick out of their sleeve, so perhaps not. Facebook will always be one of, if not the, biggest player in social media. But I wouldn’t be surprised if a new big bad network were to steal just a little of the spotlight soon. What do you think? Are you over Facebook?
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