The news of Facebook losing 80% of its peak user base by 2017 was a widely circulated news couple of weeks back. (It has been challenged by many other studies on the future of Facebook).The reasons suggested were supported with calculations based on what had earlier happened to similar platforms like MySpace, Orkut and others. In a world which is changing so fast, it is not sure how earlier examples and trends can be accommodated to predict the future? Trend prediction is not an easy thing in the physical real world and in the online world, it’s even more precarious. But beyond these technical reasoning based on statistics, there are other compelling reasons which are being cited. These other reasons are in form of criticisms of Facebook based on the idea of user fatigue. The criticism is mainly based on the grounds of how it has changed social interaction methods. The criticism says that FB has “taken away” our otherwise normal social life. Facebook is often accused of a forced creator of a social self which goes against the established and more cherished ideals of social interaction. Take the case of selfies. This alternate, not-so accepted idea of self-presentation can be cited as close to narcissism and can be considered against the more accepted ideal of “I am more than how I look”.

What could be at the root of this criticism? The melancholic tone of a certain way of life being lost because of Facebook is a result of a bias towards humanness and being natural. The biasness of human beings towards the natural way of life is seen on many occasions. All natural (without artificiality) has always been a winning proposition. A “natural” human interaction is a cherished idea and anything that attempts to alter this, is bound to receive criticism. As noted psychologist Daniel Kahneman has said- “People have strong preference for the natural over the scientific or artificial. In this context, among many illustrations, Kahneman gives the example of human (the natural) competing against machine (the artificial). He mentions in his book- “Whether it is John Henry a Hammerin on the mountain or chess genius Gary Kasparov facing off against the computer Deep Blue, our sympathies lies with our fellow human ( natural) and not with the technology ( the artificial) “. A defeat of chess player in the hands of a computer, though a technological achievement is an idea which is unfavorable to the belief of “natural” among humans. Even though we are beneficiary of “synthetic”, crave for “natural” is a so human.

So how do the technology react to the natural? There are many example where the artificial- technology & web, has outperformed the natural. Music consumption is one such case. Since live music is not possible to enjoy every time, the artificial — the recorded music is an accepted choice. The difference in benefits delivered out of these two different mode of music consumption are immense. So the triumph of artificial and technology is very undisputedly accepted. But there are many other technology based artificial offering in the World Wide Web where this difference isn’t perceived to be too big. And in such cases the bias humans have for “natural” will find a strong case in its favor.

Consider the case of Evernote which is hugely popular for its seamless note making offering. For an application which has such a huge following, it would appear obvious for it to advocate “No paper usage”. In complete contrast, Evernote very actively advocates the usage of the conventional note making through their Moleskine range of physical notebooks. Evernote isn’t just trying to be present in different product categories but actually it’s doing something which is more agreeable to human biases. In this case technology and its more natural predecessor actually complements each other.

So what could Facebook do to ward off some of the criticism it receives for fostering artificial connections?What can Facebook do for its critics? Quite often Facebook is criticized for creating an on- line world devoid of humanness. Real friendship and real connection is what seem to have suffered in the Facebook era. To dispel this belief, can Facebook offer a MeetUp like service? A service where people can extend their connection on Facebook to the real world. A service or a tool which can facilitate one’s virtual connections based on interest, hobby or a cause to the real world of physical interaction will be a fantastic offering. Embracing the natural and creating a platform where real interaction happens can just be that right thing to satisfy the critics of Facebook.