
It's SO over: cool cyberkids abandon social networking sites - malvosenior
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/06/young-abandon-social-networking-sites
======
dimitar
I really hope facebook and twitter are fads that will be abandoned and
forgotten. I don't want to be practically forced to use them just to stay in
touch.

~~~
GeneralMaximus
So what _do_ you want to use to keep in touch? The telephone? I don't think
people would appreciate it if you kept calling them every few days asking,
"What are you doing now?".

~~~
jcromartie
> "What are you doing now?"

We don't need to know this. We (this social media culture/generation) spend
more time finding out what other people are doing than actually doing
anything. It doesn't _matter_ what your friends or your brother or your aunt
did today or last night or last month even.

~~~
dasil003
Even though Facebook is largely defined by the power users and the company's
goal is to just keep ratcheting up engagement, I don't think that's the right
way to judge it as a service.

As a casual user who visits Facebook a couple times a week, I find it to be
tremendously valuable. Contrast with email for a moment. I somehow made it
into my inlaws' family list. This is a group of perhaps 100 families who all
manage their own copy of the list via Reply All. Many of them post multi-page
updates of their domestic tasks several times a week. I can never be removed
from or block this list because I may receive legitimate email from any of
these people. I may occasionally actually be interested in what they are
doing, but as it is the problem is worse than spam by a long shot. Now that
some of them are getting on Facebook it is a huge improvement. I can block the
truly annoying people and still keep ambient awareness of what's going on _on
my own schedule_.

I think Facebook is a tremendously useful tool, which is often obscured inside
the echo-chamber by the feeding frenzies around virality and engagement. In
other words, I believe Facebook is sustainable.

------
jsares
I'm tired of articles that disprove their own titles

"Clearly take-up among under 16-year-olds is very high … so we cannot say for
certain whether this is people in a certain age group who are not setting up
social networking profiles or whether it's a population shift which is
reflecting people getting older and having a social networking profile that
they set up two years ago," he said. "The main point is the profile of social
networking users is getting older."

~~~
gasull
It also says this:

 _among 15-to 24-year-olds (...) data suggests they are spending less time on
social networking sites._

------
rpcutts
Those stats don't show that 15- to 24-year-olds are moving away from facebook.
Just that 25- to 34-year-olds are signing up at a faster rate.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I like the guardians "figures behind the story" stuff, really nice. But it
does show they're relying on a percentage which means that if the overall
percent of 15-24 yo using the net has increased then the absolute number using
SNS (Social Networking Sites) could have actually increased.

Also, the figures look pretty bogus, apparently 22% of people age 15-24 have
their own website? (this is not counting blogs or SNS, eg MySpace). I don't
know a huge number of people in this age bracket but none have their own
websites.

------
dmitri1981
Potentially great news for facebook, if they can maintain their growth while
seeing an increase in the age of users. Older users have greater spending
power making them a more valuable audience to advertisers.

~~~
GeneralMaximus
Well said. As a college student, I'd be less than willing to whip out my
credit card and purchase something off the web.

EDIT: Where "less than willing" means "OMG I HAZ NO CREDIT CARD!!1!"

------
tybris
What is a cool cyberkid?

~~~
thunk
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7tazcxWUwk>

~~~
dasil003
Oh man you soooo nailed it. Best video response ever.

------
lupin_sansei
"Ofcom research shows 5% drop in 15 to 24-year-olds using social networking
sites"

What sort of conclusion can you draw from a single 5% change in data? What's
the noise level in that sample?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Isn't that a 5% drop of 15-24 yo _online_ that are using SNS. So an increase
in absolute users would create a decrease in %.

------
psranga
Great news for facebook et al! This must mean that they're going mainstream.
Attracting the cool crowd as a business strategy is overrated imho.

------
access_denied
Cool cyberkids never were on social networking sites. Heck, they never even
used a browser. They mail themselves single webpages and check them out in
GNUS. Cheech. Really.

~~~
dimitar
Richard Stallman is kinda old to be called a "cool cyberkid", you know..

~~~
access_denied
Compared to Donald Knuth he is young.

------
envitar
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/03/value-social-
net...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/03/value-social-networking)

fits in, doesn't it

