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I have noticed a pretty strong trend among my friends on Facebook: many are active users through their 20s, then they hit 30 and it's radio silence except for w

by exelius 11y ago

I have noticed a pretty strong trend among my friends on Facebook: many are active users through their 20s, then they hit 30 and it's radio silence except for wedding / baby photos. My news feed is also nearly 50% advertisements at this point. This has led me personally to disengage with Facebook, and I feel many of my friends have done the same. If I were more isolated or vulnerable though and craving a human connection, it could seem as if all my friends were abandoning me. I wonder to what extent Facebook's advertising algorithms (which dilute the content/ad ratio of news feed items) are capable of driving depression. If their algorithms are bumping posts from friends in favor of ads, your news feed feels more "cold". I'm guessing that at least a small percentage of Facebook's users are unaware that the news feed is generated by an algorithm, and that your friends may be saying / sharing things that are not shown to you. Are Facebook's algorithms capable of influencing the happiness of its users? I don't have a good answer for that, but it does seem plausible.

colmvp 11y ago
Holy shit, you too? In my 20s, for sure, I saw status updates and random pics all the time. Now? It's practically only wedding/baby/children/home improvement pics. Instagram is pretty much the only way I see how remote friends are doing on a day to day basis.
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
>many are active users through their 20s, then they hit 30 and it's radio silence except for wedding / baby photos. I think you hit an age where your realize your social capital has real worth and just blabbing about the inanities in your life makes you seem immature. Your social capital gets pissed away on this stuff and now people remember you as the girl who always complains about runny eggs and berates waiter staff or the guy who is always posting angry libertarian screeds. Why would I want to spend time with either of them? I also imagine there's a lot less "peacocking" from men and women in their 20s trying to find relationships and using FB as a way to do that or promote themselves in a certain light for those ends. By the time youre in your 30s, you're probably already in a LTR and have no need for that kind of thing.
- exelius 11y ago
  Yeah; but either way it seems like trouble for Facebook's business model. If their algorithms are sending their users into a feedback loop of "too many ads, I'm not going to use this as often" then it breaks the cycle of engagement that is so valuable to them.
J-dawg 11y ago
I experienced the exact same thing as I got into my 30s, as well as a huge increase in posts appearing in my newsfeed just because a friend 'liked' it. So I'm suddenly seeing the wedding and baby photos of people I've never even met. It just felt creepy and weird, like I was intruding on people's private moments. I think this is because, as you say, people maintain radio silence apart from major life events. When someone posts one of these major events, everyone else feels like they have to hit 'like' out of a sense of loyalty, which propagates these posts much further across the graph. These are the only type of posts I've seen that routinely get 100+ likes. I actually think this could be a factor in the downfall of FB, as it develops its own social norms (e.g. "I must always 'like' any photo of a female hand with an engagement ring on it, despite the fact it looks identical to every other one"). The number of likes a post receives is now completely divorced (pun intended) from the inherent quality of the post, so the like button no longer works as an upvote system.
- exelius 11y ago
  > so the like button no longer works as an upvote system. I don't think it ever worked as an upvote system. I think that many users have that expectation, but Facebook has never really used "likes" alone to determine news feed placement. But I agree, I think this social phenomenon combined with ad blockers (which effectively block Facebook's data feed into what sites users visit outside of Facebook) will lead to significant downward revenue pressure on Facebook. There's not really anything competitive yet; but advertising doesn't feel like a viable model long-term.
starshadowx2 11y ago
> Are Facebook's algorithms capable of influencing the happiness of its users? Last year Facebook did an experiment/study where they tried to see if they could affect a user's emotions through manipulating their news feed. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-news-feeds http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-u...

by exelius 11y ago

colmvp 11y ago

Holy shit, you too? In my 20s, for sure, I saw status updates and random pics all the time. Now? It's practically only wedding/baby/children/home improvement pics. Instagram is pretty much the only way I see how remote friends are doing on a day to day basis.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

>many are active users through their 20s, then they hit 30 and it's radio silence except for wedding / baby photos. I think you hit an age where your realize your social capital has real worth and just blabbing about the inanities in your life makes you seem immature. Your social capital gets pissed away on this stuff and now people remember you as the girl who always complains about runny eggs and berates waiter staff or the guy who is always posting angry libertarian screeds. Why would I want to spend time with either of them? I also imagine there's a lot less "peacocking" from men and women in their 20s trying to find relationships and using FB as a way to do that or promote themselves in a certain light for those ends. By the time youre in your 30s, you're probably already in a LTR and have no need for that kind of thing.

exelius 11y ago
Yeah; but either way it seems like trouble for Facebook's business model. If their algorithms are sending their users into a feedback loop of "too many ads, I'm not going to use this as often" then it breaks the cycle of engagement that is so valuable to them.

J-dawg 11y ago

I experienced the exact same thing as I got into my 30s, as well as a huge increase in posts appearing in my newsfeed just because a friend 'liked' it. So I'm suddenly seeing the wedding and baby photos of people I've never even met. It just felt creepy and weird, like I was intruding on people's private moments. I think this is because, as you say, people maintain radio silence apart from major life events. When someone posts one of these major events, everyone else feels like they have to hit 'like' out of a sense of loyalty, which propagates these posts much further across the graph. These are the only type of posts I've seen that routinely get 100+ likes. I actually think this could be a factor in the downfall of FB, as it develops its own social norms (e.g. "I must always 'like' any photo of a female hand with an engagement ring on it, despite the fact it looks identical to every other one"). The number of likes a post receives is now completely divorced (pun intended) from the inherent quality of the post, so the like button no longer works as an upvote system.

exelius 11y ago
> so the like button no longer works as an upvote system. I don't think it ever worked as an upvote system. I think that many users have that expectation, but Facebook has never really used "likes" alone to determine news feed placement. But I agree, I think this social phenomenon combined with ad blockers (which effectively block Facebook's data feed into what sites users visit outside of Facebook) will lead to significant downward revenue pressure on Facebook. There's not really anything competitive yet; but advertising doesn't feel like a viable model long-term.

starshadowx2 11y ago

> Are Facebook's algorithms capable of influencing the happiness of its users? Last year Facebook did an experiment/study where they tried to see if they could affect a user's emotions through manipulating their news feed. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-news-feeds http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-u...