“People want to go on the internet and check out their friends so why not build a website that offers that; friends, pictures, profiles. I’m talking about taking the entire social experience of college and putting it online.”
These lines from the 2010 film “The Social Network” explain in a nutshell why Facebook was conceived. Though the film is quite flexible about the finer details regarding how founder Mark Zuckerberg and his dorm mates at Harvard created the social media giant—its early days and challenges—the fact that the target audience were students, especially those in college, is undisputed.
But as Facebook turns 15, it seems like the youth have moved on. According to estimates, the platform lost about 2 million users under the age of 25 in 2018 alone, despite increasing its total number of users.
I realised that it has been ages since I last checked my Facebook account. As I logged in (after resetting the password which I had forgotten) I was surprised by how much had changed and at the same time, how little.
Just like Instagram, Facebook now allows you to upload stories, there is a ‘Watchlist’ with videos from pages we follow and the ‘House’ icon takes us to a page with products for sale near our location. With everything ranging from shoes and T-shirts to sofas and cars, one has to remind themselves that this is Facebook not eBay.
Despite the new features, Facebook is still plagued by its complicated lay out. Having gotten used to Instagram, Facebook profiles look ‘messy’. It seemed chaotic with people’s walls filled with random posts they were tagged in, their own posts, birthday wishes, status updates, slideshows celebrating five years of friendship, profile pictures, cover photos, shared videos… the list goes on and on. And even as one finally make way to the photos, we will be greeted by another set of subdivisions: photos, uploads and albums. Running out of patience, people are most likely to go back to their feed and start scrolling down, only to be interrupted by random ads every 5 seconds.
Talking to fellow members of Generation Z about Facebook, the answers were more or less the same—Instagram and Snapchat offers everything that Facebook does, but in a much better and easier way.
Instagram and Snapchat’s rise at the expense of Facebook is perfectly summarised by a friend who said, “I use the Facebook’s birthday alerts so I know when to post pictures on Instagram or Snapchat.”
Another respondent to my queries says, “My grandmother is on Facebook so are my parents and teachers… just not any of my friends.”
And the observation is not far from the truth. The older generation has flocked to Facebook over the past few years, which is a major factor that has helped the platform cross the 2 billion users mark.
However, the Snapchat/Instagram plus WhatsApp combo definitely poses a threat to Facebook. You can use WhatsApp to chat with your friends while Snapchat and Instagram gives you access to all their pictures. And why waste your time updating your status on Facebook when you can just tweet your thoughts on Twitter?
Mark Zuckerberg won’t be too worried though considering the fact that Facebook owns both WhatsApp and Instagram, the latter which he acquired for a measly $1 billion in 2012.
But with the bad reputation caused by the Cambridge Analytica controversy, fake news and privacy concerns, Facebook could definitely lose more than just its young users.
