Facebook began as an exclusive social network for upper-class students. Gradually it grew to encompass not just all of America, but the entire world. It turns out, many of us well educated people don't really want to network or socialize with poorly educated people. Police started monitoring our activities, so the events all but disappeared.
The world changed, too. Facts used to matter; we read books and the newspaper, not 25 reasons to be an idiot on Buzzfeed. Truth used to matter; less of the nation was as polarized. It was easier to get along without people shoving their ignorant political ideas in your face. Then 2016 happened, with the Russian trolls and other psyops used against us, and some of us realized we'd fucked up by buying into and encouraging others to join this network and others like it.
I could probably go on for a lot longer, but that's the gist of it.
https://iandanielstewart.com/2017/06/16/the-golden-age-falla...
I was on Facebook before it opened to the general public, and it wasn't some ivory tower of intelligent thought where the educated could avoid mingling with the dumb. It was full of stupid social media stuff then too.
After Facebook opened up, my "poorly educated" uncle was content using Facebook to simply socialize with family and friends in 2012 when today he does nothing but share right-wing memes.
Is it condescending to acknowledge that it was a network for a fairly elite group of young people to start, and that it lost appeal when it became for everyone? Of course there wasn’t much intelligent discussion, everyone was under 25. But it was part tinder, part aim / livejournal, part social calendar; I don’t think it’s been those things for many years now.
The "grow fast monetize later" model that social media companies use, along with the user being the product, inevitably acts as a template for bait and switch.
All degradation of user experience stems from that. Of course using a social media platform during its "growth phase" is going to be a lot more of a pleasant experience than using that same platform when it's trying to maximize revenue.
It's no surprise that Facebook also seemed to chase the golden goose, but now that the main page is nothing but outrage or divisive news people are leaving in droves because they're fed up with seeing the same, day after day.
Are you speaking for yourself here?
But for most of today's Facebook users Facebook is the internet and they missed out on their internet training wheels. Facebook has merely replaced AOL for a generation of people who will now take any "article" their friend posted at face value, share it with all of their friends, and then angrily complain about "mainstream media" when their phone blows up in the microwave instead of charging like the "news" told them it would.
Please be careful with the "50+" comments, ha! Not there yet but closer than I'd like to admit, and I grew up during the sweet spot of modern computing. My biased opinion is that Gen X had it best in this regard.
I meant the users like my 60 year old father who was recently "Facebook hacked" when he accidentally hit the "insert" button on his keyboard.
Bingo, that's what's doing it for me.
Before the 2016 presidential election, Facebook was fun. It was also a great way to get news.
But now, what I'm finding is that a lot of people on Facebook just don't know how to behave in a public forum. It makes it painful, because someone always knows someone who's a jerk online.
I really don't know what changed, to be honest. Did Facebook change, or did too many people come to the party?