4 ms·

As a 19 year old, I will say that from my perspective, this "coolness" factor is seriously overblown and misunderstood. Facebook was never "cool," even when I f

As a 19 year old, I will say that from my perspective, this "coolness" factor is seriously overblown and misunderstood. Facebook was never "cool," even when I first got Facebook back in 9th grade, when I was around 14 years old. Facebook was always a highly addictive and vital necessity - a social utility, the lack of which meant losing touch with friends, not being invited to events, and generally missing out on a large amount of social interaction. It was never cool and I never saw how coolness or differentiation had anything to do with it. Likewise, Snapchat is not "cool." Snapchat is pretty maisntream now (among my peers). It's popular because it's fun. All my peers use Snapchat as picture messaging for frivolous photos you wouldn't put on Facebook/Instagram.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
psbp 13y ago
Facebook was very cool ~2006-2007, when I was a teen. I think, like anything popular with teens, these services lose novelty fast.
sliverstorm 13y ago
Facebook was very cool, right before it was open to the public.
- wyck 13y ago
  It was cool for people not familiar with the internet, for others it was just another social place, like the island in your kitchen.
snogglethorpe 13y ago
> Facebook was never "cool," even when I first got Facebook back in 9th grade, when I was around 14 years old At the time Facebook was cool, it wasn't open to 14 year olds...
- ghaff 13y ago
  A bit blunt but, yeah. Facebook was arguably a lot more cool when you at least needed an .edu address to get on. (Or a bit before or after that point depending on your perspective.)
  - gaius 13y ago
    And a very specific .edu or .ac.uk at that. It's easy to be cool when you are leveraging exclusivity already.
- argonaut 13y ago
  Yes, but my point is that Facebook's ascendancy extended well into the period after Facebook lost it's "coolness," so concerns over FB's decline are overblown.
chetanahuja 13y ago
"a social utility, the lack of which meant losing touch with friends, not being invited to events, and generally missing out on a large amount of social interaction" And according to the article (and my own, admittedly limited, survey of teens and "tweens" I know), that utility value doesn't exist anymore. Now, you could argue that the thing they are moving to is also facebook under a different name (instagram)... but I suspect it would be just as ephemeral as a "required" social network as the facebook itself has proven to be.
- argonaut 13y ago
  I actually think the value increases as you get older (through college-aged), as your social networks fragment and split off. When I was in high school my FB friends were mostly people I saw day-to-day anyway, so FB merely consisted of keeping in the loop with the social activity of people I would see in person every day anyway. So I can totally understand why once-core FB activities are moving to Instagram/Snapchat/Twitter, as a sort of unbundling function (in the sense that each service separately does a slice of FB). But now that I'm off to college, FB is the only way I keep in meaningful touch with people from HS, people I've met randomly over the years, people from summer programs, etc.
  - rustynails77 13y ago
    I just don't share this vision. You either have -real- friends, or you have acquaintances. Facebook is not for real friends. If people are your friends and want to stay in contact with you, they will - like they did before Facebook existed.
    - zitko 13y ago
      Agreed. Sadly most of my "friends" are replacing real person-to-person dates, coffees etc. with Facebook chatting.
    - gaius 13y ago
      You might as well argue that a telephone isn't for "real" friends that you see in the street every day. The truth of a modern lifestyle is that people are very mobile. I can remember losing touch with people for a few years back when your email address was from your college or employer, two moves and you were gone - until the world agreed that we'd use Facebook as a self-updating address book.
ea777 13y ago
The thing I find interesting about referring to Facebook as a social utility is how different that angle is than just being "social" and that's it. Instagram (and others) may be more "cool" at this point than Facebook, but they absolutely do not provide the same level of usefulness. Private messages, events with invitations, groups, the level of organization for photos, etc all together in one place connected to everyone you care about is indeed "useful." It's just straight up inefficient to organize events and share specific information on Instagram, Twitter or like services. It's because of this I feel they will continue to thrive, as teens will still use them for the "utility" and other services for the new, trendy social interactions.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

psbp 13y ago

Facebook was very cool ~2006-2007, when I was a teen. I think, like anything popular with teens, these services lose novelty fast.

sliverstorm 13y ago

Facebook was very cool, right before it was open to the public.

wyck 13y ago
It was cool for people not familiar with the internet, for others it was just another social place, like the island in your kitchen.

snogglethorpe 13y ago

> Facebook was never "cool," even when I first got Facebook back in 9th grade, when I was around 14 years old At the time Facebook was cool, it wasn't open to 14 year olds...

ghaff 13y ago
A bit blunt but, yeah. Facebook was arguably a lot more cool when you at least needed an .edu address to get on. (Or a bit before or after that point depending on your perspective.)
- gaius 13y ago
  And a very specific .edu or .ac.uk at that. It's easy to be cool when you are leveraging exclusivity already.
argonaut 13y ago
Yes, but my point is that Facebook's ascendancy extended well into the period after Facebook lost it's "coolness," so concerns over FB's decline are overblown.

chetanahuja 13y ago

"a social utility, the lack of which meant losing touch with friends, not being invited to events, and generally missing out on a large amount of social interaction" And according to the article (and my own, admittedly limited, survey of teens and "tweens" I know), that utility value doesn't exist anymore. Now, you could argue that the thing they are moving to is also facebook under a different name (instagram)... but I suspect it would be just as ephemeral as a "required" social network as the facebook itself has proven to be.

argonaut 13y ago
I actually think the value increases as you get older (through college-aged), as your social networks fragment and split off. When I was in high school my FB friends were mostly people I saw day-to-day anyway, so FB merely consisted of keeping in the loop with the social activity of people I would see in person every day anyway. So I can totally understand why once-core FB activities are moving to Instagram/Snapchat/Twitter, as a sort of unbundling function (in the sense that each service separately does a slice of FB). But now that I'm off to college, FB is the only way I keep in meaningful touch with people from HS, people I've met randomly over the years, people from summer programs, etc.
- rustynails77 13y ago
  I just don't share this vision. You either have -real- friends, or you have acquaintances. Facebook is not for real friends. If people are your friends and want to stay in contact with you, they will - like they did before Facebook existed.
  - zitko 13y ago
    Agreed. Sadly most of my "friends" are replacing real person-to-person dates, coffees etc. with Facebook chatting.
  - gaius 13y ago
    You might as well argue that a telephone isn't for "real" friends that you see in the street every day. The truth of a modern lifestyle is that people are very mobile. I can remember losing touch with people for a few years back when your email address was from your college or employer, two moves and you were gone - until the world agreed that we'd use Facebook as a self-updating address book.

ea777 13y ago

The thing I find interesting about referring to Facebook as a social utility is how different that angle is than just being "social" and that's it. Instagram (and others) may be more "cool" at this point than Facebook, but they absolutely do not provide the same level of usefulness. Private messages, events with invitations, groups, the level of organization for photos, etc all together in one place connected to everyone you care about is indeed "useful." It's just straight up inefficient to organize events and share specific information on Instagram, Twitter or like services. It's because of this I feel they will continue to thrive, as teens will still use them for the "utility" and other services for the new, trendy social interactions.