networking

The one graph that Facebook didn’t present to investors and Wall Street last week proves it is dying

Nov 6, 2018 |

Graph shows the year-over-year change in user engagement, Daily Active Users/Monthly Active Users (DAU/MAU).

 

Facebook is dying. At the moment, it’s a slow death, but at some point, it will accelerate. That’s what social networks do. They grow engagement, until they don’t. Interestingly, Facebook blames the drop on engagement on the fact that they are trying to stop people from being able to do the thing people like to do most on Facebook . . . read fake news.

Source: The one graph that Facebook didn’t present to investors and Wall Street last week proves it is dying | Salon.com

Delete Your Account Now: A Conversation with Jaron Lanier 

Oct 14, 2018 | ,

JARON LANIER IS ONE of the leading philosophers of the digital age, as well as a computer scientist and avant-garde composer. His previous books include Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality, Who Owns the Future?, and the seminal You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto. His latest book bears a self-explanatory title: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.

Source: Delete Your Account Now: A Conversation with Jaron Lanier – Los Angeles Review of Books

How Connected Is Your Community to Everywhere Else in America?

Sep 20, 2018 | ,

America is often described as a place of great divides — between red and blue, big cities and rural towns, the coasts and the heartland. But our social lives are shaped by a much stronger force that ignores many of these lines: distance.

In the millions of ties on Facebook that connect relatives, co-workers, classmates and friends, Americans are far more likely to know people nearby than in distant communities that share their politics or mirror their demographics. The dominant picture in data analyzed by economists at Facebook, Harvard, Princeton and New York University is not that like-minded places are linked; rather, people in counties close to one another are.

Even in the age of the internet, distance matters immensely in determining whom — and, as a result, what — we know.

Source: How Connected Is Your Community to Everywhere Else in America? – The New York Times

Teens are hooked on social media. But how does it make them feel about themselves? 

Sep 12, 2018 | , ,

Broadly, teens seem aware of the negative consequences of too much social media use:

  • Nearly three-quarters of teens believe that tech companies are manipulating users to spend more time glued to their devices.

  • More than half of social media users say it distracts them from doing homework or paying attention to the people they’re with.

  • Some 21 percent of teens say using social media makes them feel more popular, 20 percent said more confident, and 18 percent said it makes them feel better about themselves.

  • A quarter said it makes them feel less lonely, and 16 percent said it makes them feel less depressed.

  • Some 8 percent said it makes them feel more anxious, but 12 percent said less anxious.

Source: Teens are hooked on social media. But how does it make them feel about themselves? – Recode