I honestly can't tell whether I'm supposed to interpret this as "The dads lost interest in Facebook before anyone else", or "Everybody got divorced."
I totally get that not everybody is like that, but I am, and so I stopped going to Facebook.
These days I'm in private Whatsapp groups for my direct family and so I learn about what they do, and not the random stuff that my neighbors and 20-years-past classmates did.
My wife is still active on Facebook and I actually do still visit occasionally to boost her posts but that's about it.
Over the next five years though, content gradually shifted to mainly image crafting. Over-processed photos, highlight reel curated trip photos, major life updates, etc. It felt like the bar was higher on what people would share, but unfortunately that removed a lot of the things that made FB fun in the first place.
I don't know whether it was a more universal shift or whether it had more to do with the age of my peers.
The sheer banality of that tends to eventually wear on a dude.
All along, Meta was vacuuming that data to build profiles of you, your family and friends, to be sold to third parties. You have been duped.
* because 1) I found it sucked up time I needed for more productive things and I was getting "hooked" on social media, and 2) it wasn't good for my mental health -- if all you see is the glamour side, even if they're people you know, it was easy for me to feel that my life sucked in comparison. It didn't make me happy.
For friends, I started a few text group chats to stay in touch. It's really annoying because someone has Android and RCS is broken on someone's end. Some also use FB Messenger, but nobody 2 years younger or older than me is on that.
It's worth noting that GroupMe sticking around was honestly probably a byproduct of my own circles and the specific campus culture to a certain extent.
This is the space that WhatsApp fills, for better or worse.
Yeah, actually why I left Facebook a decade ago: finding out what horrible people my relatives were.
For someone who grew up in the ‘golden years’ of social media, it’s kinda weird to see.
I joke, but the internet I knew as a youth going the way of the dinosaurs really has had a deep impact on me. End of an epoch.
Once in a while they would come over but that was it. You never knew what your uncle had for lunch.
I was considering self-hosting something for a while but she found it more sensible to do it this way.
Every once in a while she logs into Facebook to post something on Marketplace and immediately gets completely sidetracked by their algorithm and design. Then she gets frustrated and we just put the thing she wanted to sell on the corner instead.
Zuck is always one step ahead.
One is "I don't want to use Meta products as a matter of principle", and WhatsApp's a no-go if that's your posture.
The other is "I don't want to drown in horrible, algorithm-curated junk content". Instagram is just as bad as Facebook there, but WhatsApp is definitely not the same.
Updates are broadcasted, but they disappear after 24 hours.
Step 1) Keep updates for a week, later forever
Step 2) Mix Chats and Updates
Step 3) Add a few relevant patrocinated posts
Step 4) Change the css from green to blue
Step 5) Profit
But interestingly my experience of IG when I do occasionally go on it is similar to what TFA describes: lots of engagement-bait / thirst trap content that I never asked to see but also haven't been around to hide, so I guess the baseline algorithm is just matching me to what others in my demographic bracket have found, um, engaging.
They all use iMessage primarily, but that's a whole other can-of-worms conversation. (Screw Apple.)
I'd love if somebody would make a site based on the ~2010 expectations (not reality) of facebook. Ban any commercial activity and make people pay for it. I just want to talk to my friends and say "happy birthday" to somebody I haven't seen in years, not look at ads and slop posts.
The economics don’t work because no one is willing to pay.
The network effect doesn’t exist, because real people don’t post enough to get the flywheel started.
All the dark patterns exist because that is what users reward.
Sucks but it’s true.
(early 40s)
Distant friends and extended family: email threads
I am still on whatsapp but I am planning on nuking my account in september after a large event involving people from various continents. I have no idea if I will be able to stay directly in touch with those people after that, probably not.
I am still unsure if I'll send a message to most of my contacts or if I'll just tell my nuclear family, in laws and closest friends.
1. Signal
2. BlueSky
3. Discord
4. WhatsApp
5. SMS
I keep my follow list small and regularly unfollow people (not because I don't like them or what they post, but because I've seen enough of that).
Being able to unfollow without drama was something that was problematic in FB.
My siblings and parents have a private WhatsApp group - that's what's used for actual communication.
I'm sorry, but describing using a social advertising network as "joyous sharing" is blowing my mind. This is, like, what marketing people think normal people talk like.