Facebook: does quitting ever make sense?

Social media giant Facebook has seen exaggerated growth since its now-famous inception in 2004. One of its survival strategies has been to keep adapting and anticipating users’ wants and needs – not always successfully, but all credit to them for not falling into the trap of stasis that causes so many online phenomena to fail. Facebook has developed such a pervasive presence that when it launched Home, a Facebook-oriented user interface for Android smartphones, it saw half a million downloads within approximately 10 days.

While the app hasn’t exactly received rave reviews, the very fact that the concept was considered feasible in the first place should give you an inkling of the addictive behaviour associated with the social network. While the question, “Could you really quit?” has been at the forefront of concerns over the platform’s interest for some time, a new question has surfaced: “Should you really quit?” Facebook is no longer merely a space for individuals to interact with friends – it’s a primary medium of communication between brands and consumers, with strong benefits for both parties. Is quitting really the best option?

What happened in the noughties

Facebook began to gain popularity in the era when parents were fighting a difficult battle to keep their children’s eyes off screens to get them to engage in real life conversations. The iPod Mini made its debut in 2004 – the same year that Facebook as well as the low-cost messaging service Mxit were launched. Of course, there were other social networks and electronic distractions before these, but in the mid-to-late 2000s, for the first time, technology was accessible and affordable enough to be at the dinner table of every middle class home. Parents and researchers around the world fretted about the effect these digital intruders were having on children’s ability to develop interpersonal skills. But today, it’s not just future generations that health and behaviour specialists worry about.

The statistics speak for themselves

According to a 2013 report by the Pew Research Centre, two-thirds of online adults use Facebook, which includes 86% of those aged 18–29, 73% of those aged 30–49, and 57% of adults aged 50–64. The South African Social Media Landscape 2012 identified over-60s as the fastest growing demographic on Facebook. This means that it’s not just the “kids” who are affected.

Of course, social media has developed significantly since the noughties, and now the biggest gripe about antisocial behaviour is linked to the omnipresent smartphone. For Facebook alone, at the end of 2012, it was estimated that there were about 680-million mobile MAUs (monthly average users) — and there were more users accessing their Facebook accounts via mobile per day than via the web. It’s a familiar sight: teens and adults alike can be seen browsing Facebook while standing in line, waiting for a friend or lounging in front of the TV.

“Sign in with Facebook”

Try to sign up for anything online these days, and invariably you’re met with the familiar “easy option” of simply using your existing Facebook account to create a profile, rather than having to create yet another username and password. Choosing this option, however, means that you’re linking yet more information to the site that already tells people your real name, your email address, where you’re from, where you work and where you went to school, who your friends are – and what you look like. There are privacy settings, sure, but not everybody is diligent about using them.

Should we be trying to escape?

Recent years have seen brands migrating their marketing efforts to online platforms, and Facebook is one of the social media sites that has experienced the most business activity. At the end of 2012, more than 1-million websites were integrated with Facebook in one way or another. The benefits for brands are evident: they meet their customers where they are, leverage the power of word-of-mouth, and maximise a free, interactive and highly visual tool.

Integration is one of the most powerful marketing tools available today – but what are the effects on individuals’ personal lives? There are hundreds of tantalising opportunities on Facebook to win prizes and be part of an exclusive brand experience — the recent 5 Gum Experience featuring UK band The Kooks at a secret venue concert is an excellent example – but there’s always a catch. “Like us on Facebook” grants brands access to your profile information, which is a wonderful tool for market researchers, but can frustrate users unless they get real value out of the experience. However, the trend is to ensure it’s worth users’ while. In today’s world, is it really feasible to quit Facebook when it provides such easy access to brands and associated perks?

Cold turkey or survival mode?

We’re talking here about survival for individuals, in the face of the ever-growing and inescapable presence of social media sites like Facebook. Quitting doesn’t seem to be the best option if you remember all the perks, including not forgetting your best friend’s birthday or missing invitations to events or photographs of people from high school who gained 30kg.

Do you really want to give all that up? For some people, quitting Facebook might seem impossible — Internet Addiction Disorder is now acknowledged as a real problem. Whether you’re an addict or experiencing “social media fatigue”, social media is here to stay. While the only constant might be change, real-name two-way interaction online offers too many advantages to be dismissed. Ultimately, one of the best coping strategies is to equip yourself with knowledge about the platforms that are a part of your daily life: what they offer, how brands use them, what the privacy implications are, and what the consequences of rejection could be.