Fb was cool when I was young. A lot of middle schoolers were having fun at the mall, and we would go into the Apple Store, find an early MacBook Pro, and use tacky Photo Booth effects to take dozens of pictures that we would then post on Facebook. Teenagers would sometimes forget to log off, so we would post something like “I just pooped” before logging back in.
This isn’t true anymore. The Pew Research Centre said that 71% of U.S. teens used Facebook in 2014. By 2022, that number had dropped to 32%, but it slightly rose to 33% last year. This trend has been seen in other Edison Research studies as well. Meta doesn’t like to give out a lot of demographic information about its users, but Tom Alison, the head of the app, said that 40 million people in the U.S. and Canada between the ages of 18 and 29 use it every day.
Facebook was still a big part of my social life in high school and college. People would not ask you to parties or let you know when student groups were meeting if you were not on Facebook. In 2010, getting rid of Facebook would have been terrible for my social life. Now, if I woke up one morning and my Facebook account was gone, it would only be a small problem.
My story isn’t the only one like it. Meta is trying to get young people who are shy around other people to use Facebook again by publishing a blog post on Wednesday called “Navigating your 20s with Facebook.”
“The 20s are a time of change—you graduate from college, move to a new city, start a new job, and live on your own for the first time.” The post says, “This decade can be busy and fun. Facebook is here to help.”
Do people in their 20s read the Facebook blog? (Aside from reporters, does anyone else read the Facebook blog?) They will learn that groups like “NYC Brunch Squad” and “People We Meet in Book Club,” a virtual book club with almost 20,000 members, are great places to make new friends. (The title possibly refers to a book by best-selling romance author Emily Henry.) It’s not necessarily a group for meeting other readers.
On Meta’s blog, she also says that if you’re in your 20s, you might find love on Facebook Dating. I’m not sure about that, but I’m single and in my 20s and have never used Facebook Dating, so maybe they’re right.
One thing Facebook gets right about Gen Z is that Facebook Market is the new Craigslist. Young people like to shop at thrift stores, either because they care about the environment or because they want to save money. It’s never a good idea to meet a stranger online to buy their old couch, but if you can look at that stranger’s Facebook page, it might be easier to be sure they’re real. On Craigslist, you’re looking at a private transfer email with no personal information. This person might even know people you both know.
Facebook Marketplace is so well-known that new Gen Z social app Fizz wants to compete with it. The private social network for college students just recently added a market to its app with this goal in mind.
“People think that if I sell something on Craigslist, I might get kidnapped,” Teddy Solomon, founder of Fizz, told TechCrunch. “And Facebook Market… “Gen Z doesn’t use Facebook,” he said.
As Facebook went out of style, the way we interact with each other changed. Local venues’ Instagram posts or emails about events in my area are how I find out about them. Party planning app Partiful is backed by a16z, and my friends use it to invite people to birthday dinners. If they don’t want to use it, they just post tacky Canva drawings to their Close Friends story.
Since it’s been around for 20 years, Facebook is trying to stay useful. Axios says that the platform held an event with young artists to talk about what they think Facebook will be like in 20 years. Facebook told people who made the site, “We are not your mom’s Facebook.” That’s why the app called itself “a hub for all things cultural happening in the platform’s underground.”
Also Read: Meta Lets You Post to Threads From Instagram and Facebook. This is How You Do It
It seems like a stretch. That being said, Abercrombie, which was king about 20 years ago, is back in style, and its stock is up 900%. Even Mark Zuckerberg has done an amazing job with the rebranding. Facebook might also become cool again someday.
What do you say about this story? Visit Parhlo World For more.
