Facebook will lose 80% of its 1.2 billion users by 2017. That’s what 2 Princeton PhD students have determined.
The study, by two Princeton Ph.D. candidates Joshua Spechler and John Cannarella, has created a stir by comparing Facebook to an infectious disease that spreads rapidly and then dies out.
In the study, “Epidemiological modelling of online social networks dynamics,” the Princeton students argue that Facebook is already “beginning to show the onset of an abandonment phase.”
“In this paper, we analyse the adoption and abandonment dynamics of online social networks by drawing analogy to the dynamics that govern the spread of infectious disease,” Spechler and Cannarella write.
Facebook, they suggest, is an idea, a fad that, like an illness, can spread – and then eventually fade away. They cited the rise and fall of MySpace.
“Ideas, like diseases, have been shown to spread infectiously between people before eventually dying out,” they write.
This may come as a surprise to the idiot investors that have driven the price of the stock to $55 per share, at a 140 PE ratio. They are counting on Facebook to grow at a rapid pace over the next ten years. You can bet the ranch that Wall Street is wrong again. They never tire of being wrong or fleecing muppets.
Facebook is already dying. My teenagers use it less and less. It’s mostly being used by middle aged women who want the world to know what they had for dinner and what they are watching on TV. Facebook is part of the techno-narcissistic disease that has consumed this country over the last decade. The reality of our financial situation will be the cure for this disease. Shallowness and self worship will be replaced by the need to survive.
Make sure you post this to Facebook. I need likes. Then I can Twitter about the number of likes and tell my connected friends on Linkedin.
We deserve what we get, good and hard.
I don’t Participate on Facebook. TBP is all I enjoy and have time for.
Hey, wasn’t Bernanke from Princeton. I smell something fishy.
Bob.
My participation agrees with them. I never got into fb much. I created a personal page some years back, never updated it and eventually turned it private and abandoned it. I haven’t updated my linkedin profile in five years and never log on to either.
I never set up a Facebook page. I don’t like people all that much, don’t give a crap what they’re doing most of the time, and prefer that they not know what I’m doing most of the time. I don’t even like it when the phone rings – it makes me feel like Bilbo Baggins when the dwarves intrude into his house and eat his dinner.
I watched in complete bafflement as everyone went nuts about Facebook, many new breeds of drama were created, which of course we all freaking need, and everyone else finally figured out what I had known all along – that they really don’t like each other all that much.
Started mine back in ’05 because I had a crush on a girl. Married her.
Facebook’s not ALL bad! 🙂
PS: I use it to spread TBP propaganda and thats about it these days.
I’ve been on Facebook exactly once. I consider that a crowning achievement.
My son, when he was here in NJ, logged on to post some boring bullshit about his life, and he called me over to show me pictures of his apartment. I liked the first 5 pictures. This is ALL one needs to see for a one bedroom apartment. But then I saw pictures of; all his plants (he has about 20), wall hangings, books on the bookshelf, the new rock-salt lamp, even dishes in the sink. I finally said “This is some boring bullshit.”. That was that, thank you very much. Never been back on since.
No use for any of the social media sites. Would much rather read TBP. BC-LR to all
“Facebook is part of the techno-narcissistic disease that has consumed this country over the last decade….used by middle aged women who want the world to know what they had for dinner and what they are watching on TV”
A disease, I like that idea. Every fucking idiot you see staring at their phones have a disease. Fat middle age women who update their Facebook page every time they take a shit, describing the texture and composition of their fecal matter. These people don’t have a life. Techno-narcissism has robbed them of having a life, and they are zombies. A disease robs you of your health (check, see obesity stats), of your money (check), and eventually kills you (check).
Meanwhile, our country is being turned into a constitutionless dictatorship, and nobody cares or does anything about it. The brainwashed masses are too busy staring at meaningless crap and feeling like they somehow matter.
I got on FB because my mom asked me to. Like TPC I also use FB to piss off all and anyone I can.
A old neighbor and friend of mine is a principal of a middle school. He recently posted some bullshit about teachers not being paid the same as teachers in some Scandinavian country.
I called bullshit, backed it up with facts and the liberals came out to show their true colors. A few of the highly educated professionals deleted their posts after becoming so flustered they resorted to name calling. Goddamn that was fun.
Liberals, they can’t face the truth, I know I will never convince any progressive who believes in the party lie, but I sure have a grand time poking them with sticks.
My kids try to tell me that’s not what FB is for. Bullshit, if there is one thing I’ve learned here on TBP, if you post shit, I’ll throw it right back and keep throwing.
I’ve also had my local rag delete my account twice from the opinion column. Guess they don’t like my opinion.
Fuck em.
@card – I’ve had many cases like that. Some of the notable battles:
1) Lamented how many people I saw spending 10% of their income on christmas gifts when they had unpaid mortgages, car payments, credit cards and student loans.
A million housemoms (and some dads) came down on me.
“Would you rather buy your kid cheap gifts today they won’t remember in 30 years, or be financially solvent so you can help them start a life?” I got crickets in response. They like to appease the crying child, but blank out when you mention trying to set up their child for a successful adulthood. Taking the easy way out of course.
2) During the Romney/Obama 2012 campaign the BLS dropped the unemployment rate by something like a full half percent when Obama really needed the data.
I copied Admin’s post on the matter with some choice verbiage on my part. Got called a conspiracy nut on that one. Got to make them eat crow this past winter when it was revealed something like 30% of the data was completely faked.
3) I catch the ire of both sides when I batch social programs. Lefties are ok terminating farm bills while righties are ok terminating food stamps, but if you advocate against both you must be a terrorist.
I don’t know why I bother. If they are happy with their head in the sand a conversation over facebook won’t change their mind. There have been dozens of conversations where my data and logic crushed them like a bug, but the end result was their head still firmly wedged in their buttocks.
Which explains why I’ve had one post in the last two months.
” My teenagers use it less and less. It’s mostly being used by middle aged women who want the world to know what they had for dinner and what they are watching on TV”
How true!
My wife is addicted to that Face Plant shit and even my teenage daughters make fun of her for always being on it.
Have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone with their face stuck in a phone doing Face Book? Don’t bother.
I set up a Facespook account because I was browbeat into doing it…
Set it up and then linked to a page called “Fuck Haiti”. Didn’t go over too well.
Never went back.
Don’t care about my Facespook page or not….
AWD ,I’m staring at my phone trying read what you just wrote .Are you calling me an idiot.?
Facebook is like Scrapie, it slowly eats away your brain until you’re a zombie that does nothing but eat and stare like an imbecile.
Scrapie is a fatal, degenerative disease that affects the nervous systems of animals. It is one of several transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), which are related to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or “mad cow disease”) and chronic wasting disease of deer. Like other spongiform encephalopathies, scrapie is caused by a prion.
bb
Calling you an idiot would be a compliment.
But I am right 98% of the time about you ,the world and history.Being envious of me is bad for your health.
bb
You dipshit, you’re wrong 98% of the time, and nobody is envious of you except the schizo head injury cases in the clinic you frequent.
@TPC,
I never post anything anymore, other than pictures of the grand kids or some lame shit.
I wait for others to post anything political, then I pounce. I have two very liberal cousins, they never post political opinions anymore because of me. One of her friends promised to have her husband beat my ass I had them so worked up. Like shooting fish in a barrel.
What is this thing “Facebook”?
Mat, I believe Z-man posted a chart showing that unless you are or I am a rocket scientist, we would fall into the imbecile, moron group. I gave up after that and went full fuckwit.
Now I just post music videos for my boomer buds.