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.<p>Then you learn leaving Facebook is easy and fun -- <a href="http://joshuaspodek.com/leaving-facebook-easy-and-fun" rel="nofollow">http://joshuaspodek.com/leaving-facebook-easy-and-fun</a>.<p>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.<p>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.
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.<p>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.
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.<p>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.<p>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.
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.<p>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.<p>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.
Or otherwise said - Half of Americans make predictions based upon pattern matching.<p>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
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).<p>Edit: Grammar
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.
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<p>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.<p>The only thing I still see Facebook being used for in my circle is chat with Google Chat just as popular.<p>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.
I think 18+ is a poor demographic group for this kind of survey. Here's my unfounded guess about the actual results:<p>* 18-39 -- few people think it's a fad.<p>* 39-60 -- many people think it's a fad.<p>* 61+ -- most people think it's a fad or don't get it.<p>Lump all the groups together and you get 45% believing FB is a fad.<p>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.
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.<p>I imagine half of Americans think far more foolish things.
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:<p><a href="http://mashable.com/2012/05/15/facebook-fad/" rel="nofollow">http://mashable.com/2012/05/15/facebook-fad/</a>