I've noticed over the last two to three years that everyone on my Facebook has begun posting less and less content of substance. They no longer talk politics, they no longer debate things, they post a lot fewer personal updates, and about 10% of my friends have turned their profiles off / gone dark.
My theory is: during the first several years of the mass adoption wave of Facebook, people socially splurged. That resulted in endless fights, arguments, hurt feelings, learning too much about friends (lesser friends, casual friends), seeing too much drama out of family and friends, and so on. Now my FB feed is like the old MySpace, it's mostly trash posts, with some life photos thrown in (photos are the sole thing people update that have substance now), friends have dramatically pulled back on posting anything that might draw ire or cause tension. In my FB feed, almost all of the substance has been wiped out. I had been using FB on a daily basis for nearly a decade, and now I simply no longer care about the product. I actually look forward to going dark on FB, sometime this year whenever I get around to 'deleting' everything off of it.
I view social media as a kind of Pascal's wager. If I post something potentially controversial I risk major harassment, in exchange for a tiny benefit. Social media is enabling mob justice with a chilling effect on real discourse.
My theory is: during the first several years of the mass adoption wave of Facebook, people socially splurged. That resulted in endless fights, arguments, hurt feelings, learning too much about friends (lesser friends, casual friends), seeing too much drama out of family and friends, and so on. Now my FB feed is like the old MySpace, it's mostly trash posts, with some life photos thrown in (photos are the sole thing people update that have substance now), friends have dramatically pulled back on posting anything that might draw ire or cause tension. In my FB feed, almost all of the substance has been wiped out. I had been using FB on a daily basis for nearly a decade, and now I simply no longer care about the product. I actually look forward to going dark on FB, sometime this year whenever I get around to 'deleting' everything off of it.