U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

Re:U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in p... by lskopwol on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @07:14PM (#19496799)

Probably advent of instant messengers made them feel less lonely, culminating around 2006-2008 when modern social networks really took off, but peaking in today's result of every post on fb/twitch/instagram engendering social anxiety and thus 'loneliness'.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in p... by niftich on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @09:18PM (#19497432)

This time was indeed marked by the high popularity and increasing interop between classic IM networks, and the rise new networks. Some choice dates:

- 2005-09: Meebo launches offering web access to AIM, WLM, Yahoo

- 2006-02-07: Google Talk integration inside Gmail goes live

- 2006-03: Nielsen/Netratings survey for active users: AIM 53M, WLM 27M, Yahoo 22M

- 2006-07-12: seamless interop starts between Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger

- 2006-09-26: Facebook opens up to everyone (not just colleges)

- 2007-02-14: Gmail opens up to everyone (not just invite-only)

- 2008-04-06: Facebook chat goes live

- 2008-04-19: Facebook overtakes Myspace in Alexa ranking

- 2008-07-11: iOS App Store launches, AIM for iOS released

- 2008-08-26: Facebook hits 100 million active users

- 2008-09-23: Android 1.0 launches

More (and sources) in my earlier posts [1][2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13465483 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11114518

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in p... by Vagantem on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @07:20PM (#19496829)

True - I can still hear that MSN "new message" sound echoing in my head..

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in p... by bencollier49 on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @07:17PM (#19496815)

I reckon you're right. This was peak Yahoo Instant Messenger time, and it launched in 1998, just before the graph starts moving downwards.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in p... by cortesoft on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @07:39PM (#19496943)

Really? I feel like peak instant messenger time was around 2001 or so... I wonder if it has to do with how old we are?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in p... by gowld on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @08:32PM (#19497216)

Peak for you was likely when you were a teen.

But overall? In 2001 computers weren't ubiquitous nor portable. Middle-class kids were on IM on their desktops and maybe laptops for max a few hours per day.

Now kids have phones for IM all day and night.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in p... by cortesoft on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @09:47PM (#19497554)

The grandparent comment was saying that 2006-2008 was peak instant messenger, and people using messengers on phones were certainly not common during those years.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in p... by tdurden on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @10:02PM (#19497610)

It is a shame YIM is gone now; I lost contact with a lot of people where that was our main form of communication.

[ Parent | on HN ]