No, what killed Facebook for me was the 'like' button. Until the 'like' button, you had to either start or contribute to a discussion. With the 'like' button,

No, what killed Facebook for me was the 'like' button. Until the 'like' button, you had to either start or contribute to a discussion. With the 'like' button, the door was open to zero-value 'engagement'. Skinner tells us that rewards for any kind of conditioned behaviour are most effective if they are delivered on what he calls a ‘Variable ratio schedule (VR)’, meaning that the reward delivery should be proportionate to the stimulus response, but not predictably so. It’s like one-armed bandits in the casino - you put in 100 coins, you’re more likely to get a reward than if you put in 10, but it’s not predictable that every 50 coins you’ll win something. Or if you go and like 20 photos, then maybe someone will like one of yours back. So I ended up 'interacting' more with likes, hoping for the social affirmation of a like in return. I ended up spending more and more time on Facebook, 'liking' this, and watching that, but I think the quality of personal interactions decreased. Once healthy friendships fizzled out into yearly birthday messages and the occasional like on a post. But what was once a place to catch up on what was going on in the lives of my friends (even if it was just ‘anyone going to the pub tonight?!’) became reposts of recipes reduced to a minute’s play time. Opinions about divisive issues, boiled down into pithy quotes in curly writing on square backgrounds. Without the 'like' button, would this have happened anyway? Maybe. But for me, the 'like' button was really the beginning of the end of Facebook. I've more or less removed Facebook from my life by now, but I do lament the passing of the early Facebook—a platform for people to share and chat and be social, rather than a place where people compete for internet points that only win Facebook more money.