Reports of Facebook's death are greatly exaggerated, says Rhiannon Williams. We just prefer to stalk over sharing.
A global map of interactions between Facebook users created in 2010
Every
few months, a report is published suggesting Facebook is in decline. A notable
study from researchers at Princeton University published earlier this year
declared the social network would lose 80 per cent of its users and die out
“like the bubonic plague”. Another from You Gov branded Facebook and rival Twitter's
popularity in decline in June, stating a lack of interest, concerns over
privacy and advertising fatigue among the key reasons.
Yet
for all this doom-mongering, are any fewer of us using Zuckerberg's decade-old
platform? Global Web Index has published a comprehensive report on social media
use across 32 global markets, encompassing some 170,000 internet users in the
largest on-going study into the life of the digital consumer.