Frida Garza | The fall of Facebook

Facebook is entering a phase we might one day call its “Myspace era.”

Let me explain: years ago, Myspace was cool. In fact, in the world of social media, Myspace sort of had a monopoly on cool. Yes, there were other competitors (Xanga, anyone?) but there was only one “place for friends.”

When Facebook launched, Myspace’s cultural relevance tanked. In fact, it seemed to have an indirectly proportional relationship to the amount of people joining Facebook. And now, really, who uses Myspace anymore (intentionally or ironically)?

Mark Zuckerberg’s lucrative creation may now be following a similar trajectory. The website is losing its cool factor, the very exclusivity that made it so popular in the first place, to new competing forms of social media.

According to a June report by Inside Facebook, last spring marks the first time Facebook lost users in the United States. The social media mammoth also saw a decline in users in Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway and Russia. And while the website is still growing, most of its new users are “late adopters,” coming from developing nations like Mexico, India and the Philippines.

While Facebook publicly denies this data, these claims beg the question: why would this sudden exodus occur? Why did six million Americans decide it was time to to stop looking through ex-lovers’ vacation pics and call it quits?

I can think of a number of reasons. With so many new members, you’ve invariably racked up a hefty amount of “friends.” Hundreds, probably. Of those hundreds, you probably only use Facebook to keep in touch with a handful of them. But that doesn’t stop your middle school friend from appearing on your newsfeed. In this sense, Facebook has become a wasteland.

Updated constantly, it is a junkyard of minutia. It’s the one place you can visit to find out everything you didn’t care to know about anyone you’ve ever met, from how your old friend is enjoying himself at a Three Doors Down concert to how your aunt’s dog has bad gas.

The exclusivity that once lured in college students is dissipating with each friend request they begrudgingly accept.

Moreover, Facebook is getting old.

No, really. Increasing amounts of people in older demographics are joining the social network for the first time. That means your parents already have or probably will send you a friend request soon. That means your old high-school teacher can see your newest profile picture. That means your grandma’s Farmville requests will be pushed to your newsfeed on a regular basis.

This is not the world Zuckerberg envisioned of young Ivy Leaguers when Facebook first started. And this is probably not what you want to spend your time shifting through when you’re procrastinating on your latest paper.

One personal qualm I have with Facebook is the frightening lack of privacy. By now, most people have heard that Facebook is mining your personal information. Rumored to go public for a price of $50 billion, Facebook is making a profit, not by selling you anything, but by selling to others. It’s selling you and your Interests and your Favorite Quotations and your Likes to advertisers.

Despite the fact that this has generally become accepted as just “the way things are now,” people are taking notice. Other forms of social media are proving more popular and useful. Twitter, for example, requires less personal information and offers more timely updates on the things you care about. The ever-growing Tumblr lets anyone find their inner art and popular culture connoisseur (or just reblog pictures of corgis and Kim Jong Il). Businesses such as the New York-based Cure Thrift Store use both to reach out to customers in more efficient ways.

Perhaps the most notable social media contender will be Google+, Google’s own recently launched social network. The website is supposed to center around preserving small social circles, turning the focus away from accumulating as many friends or followers as possible. It does so by providing group video chatting and forums for any interest you may have.

According to their blog, Google wants to improve on “the most basic of human needs … the need to connect with others.” A noble cause, but it will be interesting to see if the contender can attract enough users to meet this challenge.

If Facebook is any proof, the current exclusivity surrounding Google+ (invites have been discontinued at this time) guarantees that it probably will.

Frida Garza is a rising College sophomore and 34 Street design editor from El Paso, Texas. Her email address is fridag@sas.upenn.edu.

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