By Peter Williamson
Opinion Editor
2014 is the year of many 10-year anniversaries – Justin and Janet’s Superbowl mishap, Ronald Reagan’s death, the landing of the Rover Spirit on Mars – and the virtual birth of thefacebook.com. Soon after it became the Facebook we all love (or hate). Initially only available to students of various American universities, it officially opened it’s doors to the general public in 2006, unleashing a huge influx of users, and with it a new era of internet use.
Today, it seems like Facebook is dominating every step of our lives. Almost all of our “events” – parties, raves, get-togethers and birthdays are now organized through Facebook. Awkward silences? Take out your phone instead of having to talk to bothersome people. And of course, people everywhere seem to have an increased urge to share every picture and moment of their lives as if Facebook is some sort of a public diary.
However, Facebook is also losing its initial appeal – and fast. According to a study conducted by the University of Princeton, Facebook will lose about 80% of its user-base by 2017. The reason for this is simple: what was once “new” and “exciting” has stopped being so, and therefore people will lose more and more interest in it over the coming years. The researchers used an epidemiological model (a model that predicts how viruses will develop) to predict how and when Facebook will start to die out. It seems that at the moment, we are experiencing the height of the “social network epidemic”, and soon the fever will have run it’s course – hopefully leaving us somewhat immunized against these trends in the future.
Much like it’s progenitors Myspace or Hyves, the original user-base will “outgrow” and become weary of the services offered. Already, most use of the service is being realized through mobile applications, and most people just use the service for direct communication – something offered by a range of more streamlined competitors, the like of which Facebook once represented. However, a company can only reinvent itself so many times.
At this moment, many people are using Facebook not just daily, but often on an hourly basis: we have become almost ‘addicted’ to frequent notifications and messages. Research has shown that these notifications, over time, can re-wire your brain to release positive chemicals every time you receive one, therefore making you crave them like virtual pieces of chocolate. Heavy usage of Facebook therefore develops almost unconsciously, which is why it is good to be aware of that fact in order to be able to combat these “like”- cravings.
A good way to do this would be to go on a short term of “Cold Turkey”, after which one may have lost quite the engagement with the service that was present before, or quit the service entirely. This of course carries with it the fear of alienation from friends along with social isolation. However, the fact that many people make statements like “I would quit Facebook, but…” should give reason enough to think about how deeply Facebook has engrained itself in our social lives right now, and that people don’t use the same means of connecting and interacting as 10 years ago – which worked just fine. So why not try and restructure your life, without Facebook as the glue to hold it all together?
Countless lawsuits have been, or are being brought before EU courts against Facebook’s violations of European privacy laws, which the company continues to breach nonchalantly. More and more users are starting to become aware of the fact that Facebook’s business model is to vacuum user-data and sell it to the highest bidder. This realization, of course, discourages people from using it and makes them look for other platforms that have more of a focus on privacy as a selling point. It seems as though bit by bit, people are losing the “need” for Facebook. Most likely, people will be too “internet-mature” in a couple of years to find Facebook appealing and, who knows, perhaps many other trends, such as dinner-selfies and status updates for their own sake will disappear with it.
The question is: Will you keep your Facebook account (and get puzzled or even disgusted looks like today’s MySpace members), or leave the sinking ship before it’s sunk?
Peter Williamson, class of 2015, is a Politics and Sociology major from Hamburg Germany.
