The Glassbook: Facebook’s twin
Amongst all social media platforms, people quit using Facebook the most! Do you know why? Are you one of them?
As we all know, social media is a social space where users can make social connections and participate with their community. Although it is a virtual space, there are many advantages that traditional social spaces lack. The obvious advantage is the convenience of communicating for users. It’s easier to create a social network even with people who never know, never see their face in real life. Moreover, social media can also build a community of people who have similar interests. Social media allows users to interact with their community anytime. It is a tool for making social connections, fulfilled with self-satisfaction and self-appreciation. The number of users of different social media platforms has been increasing constantly. For the increase of social media users statistics, In fact, there are quite a few users who have decided to quit using social media platforms. Interestingly, social media platforms have revealed only the larger number of social media users has increased, but we never hear about how many people have quit using social media and why.
What social media platforms do people use?
According to Statcounter’s report, Facebook is the most used social platform in 2019. Even later this year, statistical numbers state that the number of Facebook users has decreased. On the other hand, Twitter has grown in popularity which corresponds to the difference of social media platform characteristics that satisfy different groups of people. The majority of Twitter users are the young generation. Some platforms like Google+ had such few users that it shut down as of 2019. The graph below shows that the numbers of social media users on each platform have been changed constantly.
People quit using Facebook the most! among social media platforms
According to Hootsuite, the statistic of Facebook users is 2.3 billion which is highest compared to other social media platforms. YouTube which has 1,900 million users, WhatsApp has 1,500 users. Instagram has 1 billion users worldwide, and Twitter has 326 million users. At the same time, the Brandwatch report shows the ratio of people who quit using social media Between January and February 2018, which was analyzed by tracking users who mentioned to quit using social media. The results show Facebook has the most retired social media user 59% and 21% of users mentioned quitting using Twitter.
Regarding the reasons that people quit using Facebook, a large number of users have mentioned they have better mental health when they don’t use Facebook. The cause is the main content on Facebook is the stories of other users which leads to social comparisons and leads to a depressed feeling or the cause of depression along with online harassment [1]. Fake news is the second most popular reason that users stop using Facebook as they know the results of the US presidential election have been distorted by fake news and propaganda that spread on Facebook during the campaign. Other reasons include spending more time with their family, privacy concerns, avoiding the platform to use their information for commercial purposes, need more personal life, personal attitudes such as politics, avoid being scouted by supervisors, and concealing identity. It seems like Facebook lacks the content’s privacy transparency and content moderation tools.
The Glassbook Application
Facebook users have retired because Facebook lacks the content’s privacy transparency and content moderation tools. My application is open for users who are concerned about their data privacy, abuse/appropriate content on social media, and social comparisons which leads to a depressed feeling. The figure below is shown some of the User Interface (UI) of the Glassbook application.
The Glassbook Application is a social media platform which will address the existing gap by the features as follows:
- Application control with expanded privacy features: ask permission before accessing the application on a local network or tracking a user across the application
- Limit access to the location: approximate location option which users can choose to share their approximate location with the platform rather than their precise location.
- Users design their own timeline: users can customize what type of data users will allow appearing on their news feed. Users design their own timeline.
- Limit access to photos/video: limit how many pictures, videos, and folders the application can access by the feature.
- User’s data privacy with more transparency: have more transparency into an application’s use of the microphone and camera. Also, the Glassbook application will provide a privacy report that lets users know which external website trackers are being blocked from the Glassbook application.
- Content moderator: all the posts need to get approval from platform AI before publishing. It might take a few seconds longer than Facebook to publish as all contents need approval from moderators or AI.
- NO sync with other apps (share info): The Glassbook application does not share user information or sync with other applications in any case.
- Today feeling features: The Glassbook will have today feeling mode for users to manage the content on their individual timeline. This feature will work as a filter that moderates contents on their news feed which will be corresponding to the user’s feeling daily.
- Restricted content: Users can customize what type of posts, photos, and videos in which will allow or not allow to be on their newsfeed or timeline. For example, for users who avoid seeing the picture of foods at night time, users who do not like an animal but they have one who posted a picture of animal as a friend on social media. This feature will satisfy specific users for this case.
The table below illustrates the differences in privacy, customization, and other features between Facebook and Glassbook applications.
