The end of Facebook
You were too old if you didn’t get Facebook in 2007. You are too old if you get it in 2017. If you are on Facebook more than ten minutes a year, you are probably over thirty. And so are all your friends.
The Memories feature, all the “looking back” videos? Think about it. Facebook is for older people now. The young don’t reminisce.
That’s alright, I’m north of thirty myself. I understand why Facebook is popular. On the other hand, I don’t. Because it shouldn’t be. As in, you shouldn’t be smoking. Or, you shouldn’t drink and drive.
Let’s forget the fake news for a moment. Who said it was OK for social networking sites to turn into newspapers anyway? Twitter’s original prompt was “What are you doing?”, only to be symbolically changed to “What’s happening?” three years later. I guess there weren’t enough people caring about what other people were doing. Not enough to satisfy the investors anyway. Oh well.
On Facebook, you see the news about your friends, too. But, like a grin without a cat, you don’t have the friends to go with the news. Because you can’t talk to your friends on Facebook like you talk to them in normal life. Not while the bosses, the co-workers, the parents, the priests and you-don’t-even-know-who-else are watching. What can you say? “Nice photo”? “Happy birthday”? Might as well just press “Like”. Or “Wow”, “Haha”, or whatever. Those buttons are handy.
Speaking of the reaction buttons, there should be a little green one that says “Envious”. Let’s be honest, that’s what you are going to feel at least once in a while, bombarded 24/7 by the cherry-picked, polished, best and happiest moments in other people’s lives. It’s only human. And, of course, you do the same as payback. Post your best moments. Go on vacation and take lots of pictures. Make yourself look successful at everything and happy all the time. What else can you do? You don’t want to bring anyone down with your problems in a town square setting like this either.
There is a study that shows that one standard deviation in increased Facebook use is associated with a drop in psychological well-being by 5–8% of a standard deviation. There is not enough proof that Facebook is at fault, yet. It is only a correlation. But it’s safe to say that Facebook is unlikely to make you happier.
You can use Facebook to show your interest in someone and to attempt to attract some interest to yourself. For reasons of business, career, personal, or otherwise. In hopes of showing that you remember someone and to remind others of yourself. But does it work? It’s not entirely clear, especially when everyone around is doing it left and right. Does your “like” mean anything in between forty other other identical and equally impersonal likes?
Likes are like votes in a contest whose purpose is unclear. You got fifteen likes for a proud moment in your life. Great, but a News Feed neighbor got fifty for a selfie from a restaurant. You lost. Try again?
You might use Facebook to keep your colleagues, partners, investors, fans and admirers abreast of relevant news. And to keep yourself in the loop as well. It kinda works, although for anything actually important you might want to use other channels. You can’t expect anyone to always check their feeds. And you can’t expect Facebook’s algorithms to not filter out your posts.
Facebook makes no guarantees, and that is precisely what makes it addictive. The hopes and the fears. The what ifs and the maybes. What if you miss something good? Maybe an opportunity of some kind. Maybe something that will change your life? What if liking all of your boss’s baby pics improves your work relationship? What if not liking all of them puts a strain on it?
Sean Parker, the first president of Facebook, and the only one played by Justin Timberlake, has moved on to curing cancer. He says Facebook was designed to exploit a vulnerability in human psychology. That he and Mark Zuckerberg were fully aware of what they were doing, and “did it anyway”. It’s hardly news. Of course it was. Of course they were.
Facebook is so full of stuff, it is running out of space for buttons. Especially on mobile. Commenting on a phone, you first have to think about what you are going to say, remember it, and only then tap “Comment”. Because once you do, you won’t see the post you were going to respond to. You will see all the other comments. Two buttons could solve this problem: one for reading the comments, and one for typing up your own in the cognitive comfort of looking at what you are talking about. But that’s too many buttons.
And yet, just this year Facebook copied over Stories from Snapchat and, more recently, Sets from Pinterest. Do these things make Facebook better? Who knows. The point is, copying hit features from other apps helps Facebook take away concrete reasons for anyone to leave Facebook. Even if these features are not well-suited for Facebook and are a better fit somewhere else. In a few years, they will not be as new and as interesting, and Facebook will remove them — to make room for some other new and popular features it will “borrow” from competitors. Good artists copy, and it’s a solid business strategy. Up to a point. Yahoo! had a pretty good run.
Facebook, the company, is doing great. Last quarter’s numbers are fantastic. In the future, Facebook might be the number one live 360-degree virtual reality movie studio in the world, for all I know. But I’m just going to say that the years of the site/app that we have come to know as Facebook are numbered. Because they should be. And also because South Park m̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶f̶u̶n̶ ̶o̶f̶ savaged Zuckerberg. That episode marks a point of no recovery in pop culture. Remember the days when Facebook was cool and the future of social? ‘Member? Not anymore.
