Does anybody remember that Facebook thing?
Since the rise of social networking sites, the typical SHU student blog has gotten more academic, since the students who are intersted in developing their online identity and relationships already have several well-populated choices.
I only joined Facebook a few months ago. I've connected with a few old friends and people I know from conferences. I envisioned that a handful of students would "friend" me out of pity, but I found myself welcomed fairly quickly.
Yet I'm surprised at how relatively dead Facebook is this summer. I guess when there aren't that many shared real-world events to plan, reflect and post pictures about, there's not much point in visiting Facebook. Stuart Turton on PC Pro has some simillar reactions:
Facebook was a shorthand for my life - "here's who he is, what's he's doing and how he did it" condensed onto one page for your pleasure. Old conversational gambits were suddenly redundant, nobody ever had to ask "what you've been up to this week", because you knew and more so, you know exactly what I was thinking about it "Stuart is bored, Stuart is confounded, Stuart is wondering just why he is writing this."
In the end, the novelty has worn off. I don't think Facebook is any less useful than it was, but the novelty of being in my friend's pockets 24/7 has worn off for me. And presumably for them too. So, we're back on email and mobile. We make plans in the pub and dissect the resulting carnage over dinner. I'm won't close my Facebook account, that would take effort that I don't quite have the will to put in.
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I know quite a few other people who've experienced this Facebook plateau. For me at least, it's because I've switched to Twitter as my social messaging platform. It helps that Twitter can update my Facebook status automatically, meaning I visit Facebook even less.
I've heard of other people choosing Twitter over Facebook as well. It'd be interesting if anybody had any numbers on this.