

Half of Americans think Facebook is a fad - davidtyleryork
http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/15/tech/facebook-passing-fad-survey/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

======
spodek
People talk about it being addictive and it was, but then after you get back
in touch with all the old friends from way back when you realize you can't
keep in touch with them all.

Then you learn leaving Facebook is easy and fun --
<http://joshuaspodek.com/leaving-facebook-easy-and-fun>.

After deactivating my account, the only reason I haven't logged in one last
time to message everyone that I left (mainly because I find their privacy
policies creepy and getting more so) is that I'm in China for a month, which
blocks Facebook.

Don't use the site for a few days and you find you don't miss it. At least
that's my experience. Missing the invitations and updates from there didn't
leave me alone in a room with nothing to do. I did other things, with people
who invited me in person or directly.

------
tokenadult
Contrary to a couple of the comments already posted, I'm seeing abandonment of
Facebook happening most rapidly among the generation that is now of college
age (my oldest son's generation) rather than the generation of Baby Boomers
(my generation). I was late to start using Facebook, and now use it heavily
(it has replaced email lists for interacting with my circle of friends) but I
observe that my son and his friends, when they aren't seeing one another in
person, are as likely to use other technologies (no, not email) these days as
to use Facebook to converse with one another. Facebook has already lost most
of its cachet with the group of users who first began using Facebook when
Facebook was restricted to persons with university Internet accounts.

As have all people in my generation, I saw the boom and bust of AOL, and it
wouldn't surprise me at all for Facebook not merely to become uncool but also
actively to lose money. It's been done before. I've been surprised, actually,
at how well Facebook has scaled (I never thought its servers would be able to
keep up with so many user actions in real time) and I've been pleasantly
surprised too at how well I like to interact even with friends I regularly see
in person on Facebook. But I could well believe that something shinier or
newer could come along and draw away my friendship network as rapidly as it
has been drawn away from other online services in the past.

~~~
Gormo
I think the AOL comparison is very relevant. In the mid-90s, AOL was the first
experience of online communication that a huge number of people had, and AOL
grew rapidly; but its customer base eventually matured and discovered the
broader internet, and AOL declined. There was a period without a hegemonic
'entry-level' online service, and Facebook eventually jumped into that void
and dominated it.

But none of these services do anything that wasn't already available via
incumbent technologies (which were somewhat inaccessible to non-geeks), e.g.
BBSes, Usenet, IRC, IM, web forums, etc., and people have been developing more
accessible iterations of these types of technologies (reddit, for example),
and people will eventually migrate away from the constrained, privacy-
compromising services like Facebook into the wider internet.

People say that the open web is dead, but I think the walled garden approach
is never really long-term sustainable.

~~~
queensnake
> I think the walled garden approach is never really long-term sustainable.

You don't think so, because ... ?

~~~
porlw
Before AOL there was Compuserve and Delphi. They were all eventually forced to
open up their walled gardens.

Facebook is trying to be the middleman in its user's online experience, and we
all know what the internet does to middlemen.

------
nnnnni
It is, just like MySpace and Friendster before it... In a few years, the next
big thing will take over and the cycle will repeat itself.

~~~
atarian
I'm not so sure. I will most likely be wrong, but I really think Facebook has
dug in too well to be easily displaced. It's integrated itself into so many
different tenets (gaming, marketing for other brands, sharing) that I just
can't see it being a fad. There was that uh-oh moment when Google+ was opened,
but Facebook countered pretty quickly. As long as they keep doing that I think
they'll be fine.

~~~
moylan
the telegraph service western union turned down a chance to buy the patent for
telephones as they thought it was merely a toy. it's still a custom in ireland
to send telegrams for weddings, other than that...

facebook is merely a service that will exist till some better service comes
along.

disclaimer. never had a facebook account.

~~~
necubi
Sure, but that doesn't make telegraphs a "fad." Nothing lasts forever--
particularly not when it comes to technology. But I don't think you've refuted
the parent's statement that facebook won't "be easily displaced." It took a
vastly superior technology to supplant telegraphs. If the same is true of
Facebook, it could have good staying power.

The inevitable comparison when this comes up is to Friendster or MySpace, but
it's really a poor one. Neither had anywhere the reach of Facebook even at
their height, nor a large percentage of the world's internet users. Earlier
social networks had significant competitors. Isn't it remarkable that in the
~4 years that Facebook has been dominant, _nobody_ has successfully challenged
it?

Facebook will likely diminish in importance at some point, but it's not going
to happen any time soon.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
Perhaps it is hard to come up with a comparison in this space (social media)
because it hasn't had a tremendous run time with very many rises and falls.
But perhaps looking at something like "browsers" can offer another comparison
with more history. We've seen several shifts in the dominant players there.
Some have gone away. Some have been slow and steady. Some have risen and
fallen... but never died.

I don't think Facebook is a "fad" but I do think that it has a shelf life. It
annoys me. I do get to keep up with the lives of people I once knew... but it
annoys me. And honestly I'm not sure what annoys me more, Facebook or the
people that treat Facebook like the Golden Calf. I would rather be on G+ but
their lack of a full feature API is a barrier.

------
jes5199
Anecdote: I have a friend who's a college professor - a student told him that
Facebook is passe because 1) it's got too many ads 2) everyone's parents are
on it.

It's possible that this is just the lifecycle of social networks - they
gradually get infiltrated by money and adults, and the young people move on,
causing the network to stagnate and die.

I guess it's still possible that there's a niche for a stable, long-term
social network for people over 30, but I guess only time will tell.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Here's something to consider-

Kids who feel the need to be somewhere cooler will be both there and on
Facebook.

Why is that outcome not more likely than Facebook will stagnate and die?

~~~
artursapek
Speaking as a kid (19 y/o), we like rejecting things that are uncool. Nobody
my age uses Google Plus, for example. Facebook's coolness has been steadily
declining and I've been seeing people I know ditch it one at a time since I
quit about 4 months ago.

Also, I think we don't like dividing our attention/loyalty.

It's seriously fucked up, though. Now that I'm free of the Facebook mental
disease, it's disgusting to watch my friends in college mindlessly scrolling
through the News Feed and not reacting to anything. Down, back up, back
down... Facebook will be easy to replace with something new soon, I think that
will be a really opportunistic window in about a year or so.

~~~
sabathmt
You are absolutely correct sir. I am (21 y/o) going to be a senior in college.
I notice (among my friends/fraternity) is that not many kids post statuses too
often. the main sticking point is to see new photos your friends are tagged in
(imho). Facebook's height was 2-3 years ago honestly

~~~
AVTizzle
There's a pending IPO that disagrees with you in no small way.

~~~
reneherse
IPO = exit strategy

------
mike626
I have always thought that Facebook's success was tied to their targeting of
the next generation of consumers, that is college students, who had not yet
made a brand or technology commitment.

In this way, they gather together a core group of users who in turn draw
marketshare away from others both within and outside of their generational
cohort.

In my family, it certainly worked that way with my sister pulling my mother,
father, and eventually myself into using Facebook as the primary way to share
family information.

------
moocow01
Or otherwise said - Half of Americans make predictions based upon pattern
matching.

Based upon the history of the internet industry and especially social networks
its a lot riskier to say something will be relevant in 5-10 years than not

~~~
ahquresh
You are right, not many would be willing to bet that Facebook will be as
relevant in 10 years as it is now but I believe this thought is just part of
human nature. We are always anticipating change, something better than what we
have now. Nobody is wrong to think that,not that I am saying that is what you
were implying with your statement. Along with pattern matching, I think it
also has alot to do with what others think. It surprises me on a day to day
basis how many people base their opinions of such things on the opinions of
others.

------
dm8
A friend of mine who is a tutor for middle schoolers once told me that her
students would send her assignments via their parents email id. She asked her
students why they are not using their own email id since its free. In response
students told that they use Facebook messages for communication amongst all
the students and email is for old people. I was shocked when I heard this from
her. Kids are future and facebook is integral to their life. Much like web
based stuff (Amazon, Google etc.) was to my generation (born in 80s).

Edit: Grammar

~~~
freehunter
Hell, I was born in the late 80s, and email is only useful to me at work. I
generally don't check my email unless I need to find a tracking number or
someone calls me and says they've emailed me something.

Facebook is one part of it. Texting is another. Phone calls are big with some
friends (mostly with family). Email combines massive amounts of information
that's not immediately useful (payment verification, tracking numbers, bank
statements, etc) with a response that's far from instant. Combine that with
the "no one uses it, because no one uses it" effect, and email is one of the
most inconsequential technologies in my life.

But Facebook is not, at its core, integral to their/our lives. Instant
broadcast information is. Like I say quite often, the iPhone didn't need Apple
to make it, Apple just happened to be the one who _did_. Facebook could be
supplanted tomorrow by anything, and the effect would be exactly the same.

~~~
ajasmin
What kind of instant notification are you subscribing to? Instant messaging?

Don't you prefer things piling up in a queue(email) rather than being
constantly distracted?

~~~
freehunter
At home I use AIM and Facebook chat, at work I use our corporate IM. When I
need to get down to business, I turn it off. I don't like things piling up
because that usually means I need to take time out to prioritize and work on
things all at once. I'm generally not a busy person, so dealing with things as
they come in works out fine. When I _am_ busy, I make adjustments to the
timing of distractions to let me think for a bit.

Just because I'm made aware of something instantly doesn't mean it will take
all my attention instantly, just that I can now process and prioritize that
event within whatever else I have going on.

------
mbailey
Just before I clicked on this, I clicked on another HN article that was on
Facebook about Zuck was an organ donar (wat?). I couldn't read it because I
fully deleted my account about a year ago. I had a flashback, and realized,
facebook is the new AOL.

------
pairing
I've noticed a huge drop within in my friends' activity on Facebook. I have
exactly 100 "friends". The vast majority of which are college acquaintances
who graduated in 2010

The bulk of my news feed is the same 4-5 people. I was shocked to find that
when I checked in yesterday 6 "friends" had deactivated their account within
the last 2 weeks. I have vastly scaled back my own activity to only checking
in once a week. I have less than 5 status/stories in the last year. When I
look on my friends' walls/timelines, I see the same amount of activity. This
same group of friends would generate that amount of activity in a week. With
the better privacy controls, most friends including myself don't share tagged
photos anymore.

The only thing I still see Facebook being used for in my circle is chat with
Google Chat just as popular.

Will Facebook continue to grow for the next few years? Yes, it will grow
outside the U.S. Will Facebook continue to grow in the U.S.? No, the "cool"
factor is gone. I think it has already peaked. Will Facebook stock go up after
IPO? Yep Is it the next AOL? I believe so.

------
onlawschool
Interesting...CNN appears to have pulled the content...

~~~
onlawschool
The plot thickens: Searching CNN for "facebook" returns no results...
[http://www.cnn.com/search/?query=facebook&sortBy=date](http://www.cnn.com/search/?query=facebook&sortBy=date)

I tried several other keywords without encountering any problems.

~~~
fiatpandas
This method of searching seems to be returning results:
<http://articles.cnn.com/keyword/facebook>

The CNN article was basically this mashable post:
<http://mashable.com/2012/05/15/facebook-fad/>

------
lpolovets
I think 18+ is a poor demographic group for this kind of survey. Here's my
unfounded guess about the actual results:

* 18-39 -- few people think it's a fad.

* 39-60 -- many people think it's a fad.

* 61+ -- most people think it's a fad or don't get it.

Lump all the groups together and you get 45% believing FB is a fad.

I know I'm stereotyping horribly, but I can't see a lot of legitimacy in a
survey that clumps everyone together into one big group when the subgroups
probably have wildly varying opinions.

------
gulbrandr
_We're sorry! This page is not available._

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bicknergseng
If by fad you mean it has made its creators richer than god and is useful
enough that almost a billion people have signed up for it.

I imagine half of Americans think far more foolish things.

~~~
oblique63
> If by fad you mean it has made its creators richer than god

are you implying that 'fads' can't be extremely profitable?

maybe the term "fad" gives it a different connotation, but people get rich off
of economic bubbles all the time, and I would assume those can be classified
as 'fads' as well...

------
ericmoritz
Everything is a fad.

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fpp
The link is not accessible anymore and no cache at Google, but from the
screenshot there I see that this is actually based on an article at mashable:

<http://mashable.com/2012/05/15/facebook-fad/>

------
beedogs
The other half think getting in on the IPO is a great idea.

This should be fun to watch.

