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> Facebook daily active users (DAUs) – DAUs were 1.73 billion on average for March 2020, an increase of 11% year-over-year. So despite all the hate and rumors

> Facebook daily active users (DAUs) – DAUs were 1.73 billion on average for March 2020, an increase of 11% year-over-year. So despite all the hate and rumors that less and less people use FB, the numbers tell a different story

jhwang5 6y ago
Quarantine only reinforced people's zombie-browsing (FB, IG) habits, since there's nothing else to do.
- superpermutat0r 6y ago
  It's so sad because there's so much more to do. Socializing with your family, exploring intellectual curiosities, exercising, reading old books, learning something new. The human brain compute in this modern age is sadly wasted.
  - artificial 6y ago
    Must... scroll... the endless slot machine of dopamine!
  - blueline 6y ago
    this is an extremely stressful and worrisome time for many people. many are also dealing with loss from death of loved ones due to the virus. it's great that you are apparently able to use this extra time positively. but for many, right now is basically as close as can be to hell. i don't blame anyone for turning to some mindless entertainment.
  - thanhhaimai 6y ago
    I'm not sure that's sad. People should do the things they enjoy, including randomly browsing and chatting on an app. People can spend time on gaming, TV, music, reading novel, sleep, rolling on the floor, watching K-Dramas... And that's fine. It's a misconception that humans need to optimize for productivity. Some people optimize for happiness instead (myself included), and there is nothing sad about that. In fact, I'm pretty happy :).
    - Barrin92 6y ago
      Social media use is not generally associated with higher degrees of happiness or satisfaction, but in fact in some demographics like adolescent girls with increased self-harm and loneliness. The rise in loneliness (and its associated effects) over the last ten years that thas largely coincided with the advent of social media have been so extreme that some countries like the UK have created a distinct ministry and government strategies to deal with it.
      - lasagnaphil 6y ago
        But maybe can you think about the causation in an opposite way? Isn’t because in the guise of neoliberalism society has become increasingly hypercompetitive and alienating that people are flocking into those social media sites as a last resort, no matter how horrible do you think it is? I’ve seen people suggesting to leave social media to find real opportunities for human relationships, but if you really have enough social capital for that you wouldn’t be vigorously surfing around on Reddit or Twitter in the first place. (In other words: how dare you have the sheer luxury to leave social media and say that it’s harmful to you!)
  - Vadoff 6y ago
    Connecting with friends/family over Facebook doesn't count as socializing? How about communicating over Whatsapp or Messenger?
  - joejoewang 6y ago
    to be honest, if people are not using facebook, they might still use twitter, tiktok or whatever. not everyone is going to learn sth new when they have free time. I do not think that is a waste.
  - actuator 6y ago
    Wouldn't being distanced from your friends and family kind of increase the usage of mediums you can use to connect with them, and see what's up in their lives? Also, humour through content like memes, videos which platforms like Instagram, Tiktok provide is a nice escape from all the gloomy news. While you can use platforms like Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp to kind of socialize in new ways like your home workouts, cooking things etc.
- noncoml 6y ago
  > financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2020 The quarantine period is only 15 days or so for US, a bit more for couple other countries.
  - shripadk 6y ago
    40 days in India with India having the largest Facebook user base and second largest Instagram user base. And this is only going to grow even more.
    - actuator 6y ago
      Umm.. that[1] is not even remotely close. It just includes about 7-8 days of lockdown period from India. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_lockdown_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_lockdown_in_I...
    - what_ever 6y ago
      Those were not all in Q1 which this quarterly result is about.
fossuser 6y ago
Yep - it's easy to look back at all of the bad HN predictions from two years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16683278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16683278 General HN anti-FB sentiment has been wrong on this issue for a long time.
- aaomidi 6y ago
  It would be interesting to see the demographic changes that come with Facebook. I have a feeling younger users are leaving and older users (especially now that they're more isolated than before) are joining.
  - sanderjd 6y ago
    But that's what the theory has been for years. At some point if it's actually become only for older people like we all keep saying, you'd see that in the growth numbers, and that keeps not happening. Which is what the parent meant about how we've been wrong on this for a long time.
    - aaomidi 6y ago
      The data doesn't really talk about the demographics of the users from what I've seen. Maybe I'm wrong.
      - sanderjd 6y ago
        Sure, but this narrative about it being for older people and hemmorhaging younger people has been going on for so long that if it were true, there is no way the growth could have been what it's been, because they would have run out of people in that demographic. The more plausible explanation is that young people are still joining, even if perhaps begrudgingly.
- thatcat 6y ago
  Or growth is not in the US market and predictions were right.
sanderjd 6y ago
I have been using facebook for nearly 15 years, and there has never been a time at which your exact statement wasn't true. It has been both hated and fast-growing for pretty much its whole existence.
- throwaway1777 6y ago
  Not really, the press and general sentiment was very positive around Facebook up until around 2015-16 when the Trump election kicked into gear.
  - sanderjd 6y ago
    I mean, I guess I read the comment from my own personal perspective, from which I have always seen what I would describe as lots of hate and lots of rumors (or wishful thinking more like) that it was going to go the way of myspace. I wasn't thinking about the press (and mainstream sentiment has never been against it). But rereading it, I can see where that is perhaps the more obvious interpretation than my own.
- Groxx 6y ago
  I dunno... early on (e.g. while locked to universities) I very much didn't see widespread un-like for it. I overheard tons of people who were thrilled when it became available, and even after a year or two I don't think I heard any complaints (except that you couldn't put gifs everywhere). It was dramatically more useful than anything else we'd used, especially the stuff the school was offering. After it opened up, yeah, it wasn't long before sentiment shifted :) I'm not sure when I'd label it crossing a majority of what I hear, but there was a definite shift within a year or so.
  - sanderjd 6y ago
    I was part of the locked-to-your-university cohort. I disliked it right from the start - I am not a naturally social person and I found college to be inundated with socialization, facebook was yet another thing to make me feel weird, and I thought it was creepy because I was in all these pictures I didn't post, out there for anyone to see - but yeah lots of my friends loved it. But I did know other weird people who didn't. Just for round numbers, let's say 1% of us actively disliked it and 99% loved it. What I think has happened as I've watched it since then is that that love/hate ratio has stayed relatively stable, but it has grown so much that there are a lot of people on the hate side now, in absolute terms, so it's more noticeable. But I don't think the fundamental calculation is all that different.
realtalk_sp 6y ago
It seems like they're rolling all their platforms (Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, FB Main) into that one metric? HN's position has generally been that FB Main is on the decline and I'm not sure this metric is enough to contradict that.
- pthomas551 6y ago
  FB mainsite is on the decline...in the US. Globally it's still going strong.
- alasdair_ 6y ago
  >It seems like they're rolling all their platforms (Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, FB Main) into that one metric? HN's position has generally been that FB Main is on the decline and I'm not sure this metric is enough to contradict that. Those numbers are for FB Main. The number of active users across all platforms is 3 Billion. From the linked report: "Family monthly active people (MAP) – MAP was 2.99 billion as of March 31, 2020, an increase of 11% year-over-year."
Kiro 6y ago
HN is notoriously bad at predicting trends. We're blinded by hate.
rb808 6y ago
11% more people or more bots?
gdilla 6y ago
is it though? In terms of human population, there's still billions of people for FB to 'acquire'. But I would still venture that it's worrisome if they're shedding users/usage in the USA or the west in general as they are usually monetized much better.

jhwang5 6y ago

Quarantine only reinforced people's zombie-browsing (FB, IG) habits, since there's nothing else to do.

superpermutat0r 6y ago
It's so sad because there's so much more to do. Socializing with your family, exploring intellectual curiosities, exercising, reading old books, learning something new. The human brain compute in this modern age is sadly wasted.
- artificial 6y ago
  Must... scroll... the endless slot machine of dopamine!
- blueline 6y ago
  this is an extremely stressful and worrisome time for many people. many are also dealing with loss from death of loved ones due to the virus. it's great that you are apparently able to use this extra time positively. but for many, right now is basically as close as can be to hell. i don't blame anyone for turning to some mindless entertainment.
- thanhhaimai 6y ago
  I'm not sure that's sad. People should do the things they enjoy, including randomly browsing and chatting on an app. People can spend time on gaming, TV, music, reading novel, sleep, rolling on the floor, watching K-Dramas... And that's fine. It's a misconception that humans need to optimize for productivity. Some people optimize for happiness instead (myself included), and there is nothing sad about that. In fact, I'm pretty happy :).
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    Social media use is not generally associated with higher degrees of happiness or satisfaction, but in fact in some demographics like adolescent girls with increased self-harm and loneliness. The rise in loneliness (and its associated effects) over the last ten years that thas largely coincided with the advent of social media have been so extreme that some countries like the UK have created a distinct ministry and government strategies to deal with it.
    - lasagnaphil 6y ago
      But maybe can you think about the causation in an opposite way? Isn’t because in the guise of neoliberalism society has become increasingly hypercompetitive and alienating that people are flocking into those social media sites as a last resort, no matter how horrible do you think it is? I’ve seen people suggesting to leave social media to find real opportunities for human relationships, but if you really have enough social capital for that you wouldn’t be vigorously surfing around on Reddit or Twitter in the first place. (In other words: how dare you have the sheer luxury to leave social media and say that it’s harmful to you!)
- Vadoff 6y ago
  Connecting with friends/family over Facebook doesn't count as socializing? How about communicating over Whatsapp or Messenger?
- joejoewang 6y ago
  to be honest, if people are not using facebook, they might still use twitter, tiktok or whatever. not everyone is going to learn sth new when they have free time. I do not think that is a waste.
- actuator 6y ago
  Wouldn't being distanced from your friends and family kind of increase the usage of mediums you can use to connect with them, and see what's up in their lives? Also, humour through content like memes, videos which platforms like Instagram, Tiktok provide is a nice escape from all the gloomy news. While you can use platforms like Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp to kind of socialize in new ways like your home workouts, cooking things etc.
noncoml 6y ago
> financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2020 The quarantine period is only 15 days or so for US, a bit more for couple other countries.
- shripadk 6y ago
  40 days in India with India having the largest Facebook user base and second largest Instagram user base. And this is only going to grow even more.
  - actuator 6y ago
    Umm.. that[1] is not even remotely close. It just includes about 7-8 days of lockdown period from India. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_lockdown_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_lockdown_in_I...
  - what_ever 6y ago
    Those were not all in Q1 which this quarterly result is about.

fossuser 6y ago

Yep - it's easy to look back at all of the bad HN predictions from two years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16683278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16683278 General HN anti-FB sentiment has been wrong on this issue for a long time.

aaomidi 6y ago
It would be interesting to see the demographic changes that come with Facebook. I have a feeling younger users are leaving and older users (especially now that they're more isolated than before) are joining.
- sanderjd 6y ago
  But that's what the theory has been for years. At some point if it's actually become only for older people like we all keep saying, you'd see that in the growth numbers, and that keeps not happening. Which is what the parent meant about how we've been wrong on this for a long time.
  - aaomidi 6y ago
    The data doesn't really talk about the demographics of the users from what I've seen. Maybe I'm wrong.
    - sanderjd 6y ago
      Sure, but this narrative about it being for older people and hemmorhaging younger people has been going on for so long that if it were true, there is no way the growth could have been what it's been, because they would have run out of people in that demographic. The more plausible explanation is that young people are still joining, even if perhaps begrudgingly.
thatcat 6y ago
Or growth is not in the US market and predictions were right.

sanderjd 6y ago

I have been using facebook for nearly 15 years, and there has never been a time at which your exact statement wasn't true. It has been both hated and fast-growing for pretty much its whole existence.

throwaway1777 6y ago
Not really, the press and general sentiment was very positive around Facebook up until around 2015-16 when the Trump election kicked into gear.
- sanderjd 6y ago
  I mean, I guess I read the comment from my own personal perspective, from which I have always seen what I would describe as lots of hate and lots of rumors (or wishful thinking more like) that it was going to go the way of myspace. I wasn't thinking about the press (and mainstream sentiment has never been against it). But rereading it, I can see where that is perhaps the more obvious interpretation than my own.
Groxx 6y ago
I dunno... early on (e.g. while locked to universities) I very much didn't see widespread un-like for it. I overheard tons of people who were thrilled when it became available, and even after a year or two I don't think I heard any complaints (except that you couldn't put gifs everywhere). It was dramatically more useful than anything else we'd used, especially the stuff the school was offering. After it opened up, yeah, it wasn't long before sentiment shifted :) I'm not sure when I'd label it crossing a majority of what I hear, but there was a definite shift within a year or so.
- sanderjd 6y ago
  I was part of the locked-to-your-university cohort. I disliked it right from the start - I am not a naturally social person and I found college to be inundated with socialization, facebook was yet another thing to make me feel weird, and I thought it was creepy because I was in all these pictures I didn't post, out there for anyone to see - but yeah lots of my friends loved it. But I did know other weird people who didn't. Just for round numbers, let's say 1% of us actively disliked it and 99% loved it. What I think has happened as I've watched it since then is that that love/hate ratio has stayed relatively stable, but it has grown so much that there are a lot of people on the hate side now, in absolute terms, so it's more noticeable. But I don't think the fundamental calculation is all that different.

realtalk_sp 6y ago

It seems like they're rolling all their platforms (Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, FB Main) into that one metric? HN's position has generally been that FB Main is on the decline and I'm not sure this metric is enough to contradict that.

pthomas551 6y ago
FB mainsite is on the decline...in the US. Globally it's still going strong.
alasdair_ 6y ago
>It seems like they're rolling all their platforms (Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, FB Main) into that one metric? HN's position has generally been that FB Main is on the decline and I'm not sure this metric is enough to contradict that. Those numbers are for FB Main. The number of active users across all platforms is 3 Billion. From the linked report: "Family monthly active people (MAP) – MAP was 2.99 billion as of March 31, 2020, an increase of 11% year-over-year."

Kiro 6y ago

HN is notoriously bad at predicting trends. We're blinded by hate.

rb808 6y ago

11% more people or more bots?

gdilla 6y ago

is it though? In terms of human population, there's still billions of people for FB to 'acquire'. But I would still venture that it's worrisome if they're shedding users/usage in the USA or the west in general as they are usually monetized much better.