A couple of years ago you couldn’t do anything without it somehow popping up on Facebook minutes later. People updated their Facebook statuses hourly with information on what cool place they’re at, who they’re currently mad at, or what they had for breakfast. Recently, however, there has been less and less interest in people caring about every time you sneeze.
Facebook exploded onto the scene in 2004 and then again in 2005 when Mark Zuckerberg launched a high school version, taking people away from sites like Myspace and AIM. On Facebook people could easily connect with people they haven’t seen since high school or college, or talk to that cousin that they’ve never met before. Generation Z (for Zuckerberg) was in full swing.
“If you asked me two years ago, I honestly thought I was still going to be logging on when I was 50 years old,” said Senior Kristin Visentin “I never thought Facebook was going to go away.” That’s the mind set that a lot of us had. It was hard to imagine life without it, especially considering that Facebook’s population was larger than most countries in the world, around 1 billion users.
If Facebook was so popular, then what caused the sudden downfall innumbers? “I personally don’t like the fact that there are growing numbers of parents on Facebook. I feel like I can’t post anything anymore,” said Senior Amanda Massaker. It’s true, teenagers are leaving the Facebook days behind because they feel like their families are stalking their profiles and the pictures they were tagged in from this weekend’s party.
Another factor of the Facebook drop is things like Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram, which all allow you to express how you’re feeling at that moment to the public. Parents have yet to discover these social media outlets, letting kids express how they feel without having the fear of it getting seen. Twitter let’s people send 140 character statuses to whoever follows them. They update everyone on what song they’re listening to or who they’re with. Tumblr, mostly dominated by girls, gives you the opportunity to create a blog with pictures and videos of whatever interests you. Instagram, the newest social media craze, blends Twitter and Instagram together by allowing people to take pictures and post them, hoping for numerous likes and comments.
“Facebook may be ‘dying’ but I doubt it’ll ever go away,” said Senior Cat Macowski. “People are always going to care what people are doing and are for some reason obsessed with everyone else’s business, Facebook allows you to explore whoever’s business you want.”