Facebook has been faking it for at least a year. By faking it I mean not growing under their own power. Now "Fakebook" either has to buy users (like the Instagram deal) or its growth is due to mostly fake users with fake likes giving fake metrics.
People are leaving Fakebook now. Not in droves (yet), but the opinion leaders within groups and families are. The ones that are informed are. And the rest will follow once there is another massive invasion of their privacy.
To those reading this who still use their Facebook account, try going without it for a month. See if you don't feel better. I know I did.
> And the rest will follow once there is another massive invasion of their privacy.
I don't see why people keep clinging to this line of reasoning. There is zero evidence of this, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. Not enough people care enough to make any significant changes. The blogs and news articles try to paint a picture of user unrest over privacy issues, but it's all a fantasy.
People will leave when and only when it stops being the place where everyone else is. There will be no mass exodus. The only way facebook will lose its perch is through a slow trickle over many years.
While a lot of people talk about privacy or content relevancy issues, which I agree are important, there is a good thread on Reddit discussing why Facebook can be bad for your mental health.
One user writes, "I started to compare my life to others, hating people based off of their status...All it brought me was anger and a lower self-confidence. Almost immediately after deleting it, I felt better. I'm mostly ok with how I live my life and I don't need to compare my life to that of others."
I think that's a very interesting thought. I deleted my Facebook account after I felt that it sucked up too much of my time just browsing status updates. Before, every so often, I would check Facebook to see if anything new had been posted. It got to the point where I had enough and now I feel less anxious about constantly going on the Internet. Information was overloaded for me.
People are leaving Fakebook now. Not in droves (yet), but the opinion leaders within groups and families are. The ones that are informed are. And the rest will follow once there is another massive invasion of their privacy.
To those reading this who still use their Facebook account, try going without it for a month. See if you don't feel better. I know I did.