Social media use is falling

Pat Mustard

Link

A report by SimilarWeb that tracked engagement time on social media and the download of social media apps in nine countries over the past two years, showed that social media use is dropping. People are not only spending less time within social media applications on smartphones, but also the number of downloads and installs of social media applications have dropped dramatically.

In India, interest in Instagram seems to have reduced considerably, as the number of installs dropped to 19% of devices from 32% of devices. However, the actual amount of time people spent in Instagram, declined across the board. Twitter installs in India dropped from 31% to 18%, which is a significant fall. Facebook installs also dropped from 71% to 65%. Engagement time for Facebook and Twitter also fell in India compared to last year. Globally, Indians use Twitter and Facebook the least, when compared to the other countries in the study.

Link to the study.

If there has been a fall-off in use of social media, what are people doing? Are they going back to using their leisure time for more active or creative hobbies or sports?

Mellor

I've only read the quote box above and not the whole article, but I can see an obvious flaw in their methodology. They are measuring it is terms of % in installed devices. I'd imagine the numbers of devices in the sample increased over that time, meaning that the number of app installs has not dropped by that amount, or even at all.
These days people have more an more app ready devices, phone, work phone, tablet, laptop etc. If somebody has multiple device, they are very likely to only install certain apps on certain devices.

I'd imagine the number of active accounts, and/or the averar post rate for active accounts is reasonable stable.

Bongalongherb

Stuff like that gets boring after a while and folk just find other interesting things to do. Maybe they all bought a telescope and got into astronomy, or their body and mind just said enough of this junk, time to live free away from sitting at a computer or looking at a tab/phone monitor all day every day. The buzz has worn off. The use of face-book will take a huge dive in the next 2 years I'd say for sure.

Pat Mustard

Mellor wrote: »

I've only read the quote box above and not the whole article, but I can see an obvious flaw in their methodology. They are measuring it is terms of % in installed devices. I'd imagine the numbers of devices in the sample increased over that time, meaning that the number of app installs has not dropped by that amount, or even at all.
These days people have more an more app ready devices, phone, work phone, tablet, laptop etc. If somebody has multiple device, they are very likely to only install certain apps on certain devices.

I'd imagine the number of active accounts, and/or the averar post rate for active accounts is reasonable stable.

I should have quoted from the article more carefully. The study also shows a drop in usage in various social media apps:

Across the board, people are spending less time on their Social Media apps. In a study conducted using SimilarWeb data on Android apps, we compared app data from Q1 2015 to Q1 2016, and found that in almost all countries, time spent on the 4 leading Social Media apps is down. On Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter, Android users seem to be cutting down on their Social Media app usage time.

ancapailldorcha

Interesting. I do remember when Facebook first became popular. I was using Bebo at the time and didn't really understand the point of adopting another service. However, Facebook has continually innovated and upgraded the service it provides to users over the years, mainly by encroaching into territory dominated by other services such as Skype. People are using it for everything. However, I do wonder if it has plateau'd. There can't be much room left for expansion and I don't even know what they'd expand into. People might be getting bored with it for this reason.

J_E

Personally, I've found Facebook to continually decline as it tries to be the solution for every other service available, I'm fed up of the content it pushes, the endless comment walls of [friends name tagged here], constant stealing of video content without a proper takedown system, the increasingly invasive presence in everyone's regular lives.

I cut off my account a while back and happy to see it gone. Facebook's brand of social media is bull****, every last aspect of people's social life is now a commodity or a 'shareable moment'.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

carlo5

Messaging is increasing. "Walls" have become saturated, specially on Facebook, that you can get your message across only if you decide to pay.

intheclouds

Its the ads and sponsored content that do my head in.

That and the morons who just repost endless meme's and/or photos of their baby.

I have unfollowed so many people on FB that I wonder why I am still on it at all!

I remember once unfriending a guy from school who I had barely known in school and he messaged me wanting to know why Id unfriended him. He actually had an app that would alert him to people unfriending him on FB!!

It turns people into weirdos.

Olishi4

People are sociable and initially sign up for social media for that but for a lot of people, social media like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc are not really that social. They can be quite isolating and repetitive. A lot of the use involves people either falsely complimenting one another, ignoring each other or someone risks saying or supporting or liking something that unintentionally outrages people which we are all capable of doing at some point. Social Media is not real life and yet people spend a lot of time using it. Some people after a while realise that and opt out.

I would say that it often becomes a burden or boring to people especially people with a lot of "friends" and "followers". It is not natural for people to share so much personal information publicly so they only share a certain part but its usually not very authentic which is fair enough because that would make people feel vulnerable.

With real friends, most people are authentic. They can talk about their bad days and their good times with people they know and trust. Its how people relate.

Social media is confusing to people because it's a mixture of the very formal and personal thrown into one. It does have its benefits but it seems to be extremely overrated.

764dak

I only use Facebook to log in to certain games and occasionally send someone a birthday greeting. I sometimes look at tweets of famous people. I don't have an Instagram account but I occasionally look at pictures on it. Social media is kinda boring.

Pat Mustard

Boards.ie counts as social media though and you're using that! :pac:

RDM_83 again

I definitely feel that Facebook isn't really that social these days. My wall is simply people linking articles about the US presidential debates, Repeal the 8th stuff and a bit of Brexit normally with a tiny outrage message from the poster, it's just boring.
I have the feeling most posting funny stuff and personal updates have moved that posting to snapchat which I don't use now

Mutant z

Ive never bothered with facebook the thought of my personal life being put up for the world to see is not what appeals to me.