Is Facebook losing its appeal to users?

Do you use Facebook as a last-minute thought or do you actively post? It is often difficult to determine individual preference of social media such as SnapChat or Instagram. However, Facebook still remains pretty popular in its use for various reasons.

Savannah Davila, a graphic design major, said she checks Facebook to see what her family and friends are doing, and especially enjoys the photos of pets and kids. She also likes to share her fun social events with the people she hangs out with or use Facebook as a brain break from when she is working on her school assignments.

“I do follow some groups from school to keep updated with events,” Davila added in her response on a Facebook post.

Yet others prefer SnapChat to Facebook because it is not as tricky with its privacy settings.

“Snapchat allows you to post little video snippets or photos publicly if you want, but you can also just send them to individual friends,” commented Daman Beres, a writer for the Huffington Post “The appeal there is obvious: You’re totally in control of your image through every step of the process, and there aren’t any cumbersome privacy controls to fiddle with.”

Davila uses SnapChat to communicate with her niece or close friends “just to be silly,” or to chat with some friends who prefer Instagram and do not have a Facebook account.

Tim Starman, a Film and Media Studies major, observed that culture has grown more visual, so Instagram is a better outlet for sharing stories about your life than Facebook.

“Pictures hold our attention and are more creative and interesting than Facebook and Twitter with just words,” Starman explained.

But Starman still uses Facebook for catching up with his friends and to share his important personal news, such as applying for a full-time internship at Minnesota Public Radio recently. He also gets on Twitter for mostly news only.

“I feel like Twitter is a more impersonal and processional outlet,” he said.

However, the reason for the common use of Facebook may be traced back to the statistics writers Shannon Greenwood, Andrew Perrin, and Maeve Duggar recorded last November for Pew Research Center. “Thanks in part to the growing number of older adults who are joining the site, Facebook use appears to be on the rise: The share of online adults who report using Facebook has increased by seven percentage points compared with a Pew Research Center survey conducted at a similar point in 2015. In addition, the share of Facebook users who check in daily has increased slightly in the past year: 76 percent of Americans who use Facebook now report that they visit the site on a daily basis, up from 70 percent in 2015.”

Facebook may also be used more because of its Messenger application, which allows college students to connect for study groups or group projects, even if they do not want a future long-term relationship. It is also a good alternative to wanting to communicate with someone on Facebook without directly being on the social media site.

It is clear technology from all social media sites have continued their advancement. Also the reasons why someone chooses one site over the other depends on their personal reference of communication and what each site offers compared to another.

Whatever the cause, humans have and will always be social creatures and have found different ways in the history of evolution for their communication methods.