A New York Times article about the recent decline in Facebook growth claimed that Facebook has more than 800 million active users, including 200 million Americans.
According to the Pew Research Center, about 73 percent of online teens and 72 percent of young adults use social networking websites.
The New York Times reported that Facebook has experienced a drop in growth from 56 percent to 10 percent in the past year.
Roger Soenksen, a James Madison U. professor, offered some explanation for why Facebook’s growth is declining.
“One thing that has happened is that Facebook has changed its look so many times,” Soenksen said.
He added that the large number of individuals who use Facebook sporadically might log in and find that they no longer know how to operate or navigate the site and ultimately decide it’s not worth using.
Inane statuses and comments may also be slowing down Facebook’s growth.
“I don’t care if somebody takes a picture of their supper, or something, and posts it online,” Soenksen said. “When you have a limited amount of time in your day, you have to be selective on how to use it,” Soenksen said.
Although Facebook’s growth is declining, Twitter is growing exponentially with 572,000 new accounts created all on March 12, 2011 alone according to an article in The Huffington Post about the recent growth of Tumblr and other social media. The same article states that the average number of tweets per day has almost tripled from 50 million to 140 million.
Taylor Busching, a JMU freshman health science major, thinks Facebook should be used to stay in touch with friends and family, but people are stepping away from that and using it for the wrong reasons.
Her brother replaced Facebook with Twitter because he was receiving inappropriate comments about his girlfriend through the site.
“People use it to create drama and to bully people,” Busching said. “I feel that they use Facebook to hide behind a screen and not get in trouble.”
Missy Fleming, a JMU freshman studio art major, favors Facebook over Twitter.
“I’ve seen a lot of statuses lately that say, ‘Facebook is boring, going back to Twitter,’ but I think I get more bored with my Twitter account than with Facebook,” Fleming said.
Tim Moore, a JMU freshman, sees Facebook as a tool to communicate with his friends.
Users may release information whenever they want on both social networks, but Moore believes constant updates are unnecessary.
“It’s kind of like Twitter,” Moore said. “Like, I don’t need to know what you’re doing every five minutes.”
Although Moore prefers Twitter, he can see the appeal in it for a person who likes the real-time aspect of the site.
“I think Twitter is more entertaining for some people because you get a message like every second,” he said. “Facebook has a little bit of a delay on what you find out about people.”
Moore thinks people are leaving Facebook because Twitter is “in the moment” and gives its users quick and easy updates.
Kara Sheehan, a JMU freshman, uses social networking for around four hours a day and says she would never delete her Facebook account.
“If I have nothing to do, I’ll go onto Facebook,” Sheehan said. “I can’t do homework until I check Facebook, just in case I have an important notification or something.”
Soenksen said that young people don’t know how to self-regulate usage, so addiction and dependency is common.
“Young individuals are very much into technology, and as such, I think parents have nurtured that by giving them the most recent technology,” Soenksen said. “They lose the ability to develop interpersonal relationships and face-to-face interactions.”
Facebook is a great networking tool, he added, but it can easily be misused.
“I think the individual user has to decide for themselves how to approach technology,” Soenksen said.
Despite Sheehan’s “addiction,” Facebook gives her a good opportunity to maintain relationships with her friends.
“I can communicate with my friends from other colleges,” Sheehan said, “and I like it much more now because when I first got it, I thought it was this horrible, conformist thing.”