Saturday, April 9, 2016

Context Collapse . . .

Facebook is working to combat a decline in people sharing original, personal content, the fuel that helps power the money machine at the heart of its social network, according to people familiar with the matter.
Overall sharing has remained strong, according to Facebook. However, people have been less willing to post updates about their lives as their lists of friends grow, the people said.
Instead, Facebook’s 1.6 billion users are posting more news and information from other websites. As Facebook ages, users may have more than a decade’s worth of acquaintances added as friends. People may not always feel comfortable checking into a local bar or sharing an anecdote from their lives, knowing these updates may not be relevant to all their connections.
According to one of the people familiar with the situation, Facebook employees working on the problem have a term for this decline in intimacy: "context collapse." Personal sharing has shifted to smaller audiences on Snapchat, Facebook’s Instagram and other messaging services.

[Source: Bloomberg]

So the question is, is this a bad thing? Do I really want to know that you went to the market, or got a haircut? Sure, if you get invited to the White House for a state dinner, I would like to know, but, other than that, I'm not interested. I should say that I got onto Facebook because of companies posting information there -- a work thing. I also see information from co-workers and other professional connections. But, I don't post information about myself. If you are interested it what I am doing, I can only say, get a life! Man is your existence that boring that you care what I do minute-to-minute? Put down the phone, get off the computer and go DO something. Just don't tell me about it.

Sure, I see that Facebook is really thinking that their profits go down in proportion to this type of thing. That's their REAL motivation, not your social interests. But, I just can't get excited about it.

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