Is Facebook Dead?

Here are some symptoms I’ve noticed that make me wonder about the health of this social media behemoth. Out of the hundreds of pages I’ve liked and followed, and numerous friend requests I’ve accepted, my news feed routinely consists of content from only a small number of sources.

Of the more than 300 likes on my author page, my posts typically reach 0 to 1 person. Even during the past year when I was making posts daily, my numbers rarely got out of the single digits. I can think of a couple reasons. Facebook is hiding my posts, or the people who used to see them have gone away. The latter seems more likely.

A few years ago, I began noticing posts I wanted people to see, would get very few views, but random, unimportant stuff I shared would get many more. I’m reasonably confident that, for the purpose of persuading me to buy ads, Facebook had analyzed my content and figured out what I cared about and what I didn’t. But these days hardly anyone sees anything I post, whether it’s important to me or not.

Obviously many large brand accounts that pay for ads are getting their message to their customers, otherwise they wouldn’t keep throwing money at the thing, would they? And, from what I can tell, groups that cater to special interests are doing okay. So, is Facebook dead? No.

But for me, it’s like a zombie, a decaying remnant of a once living entity, lurching down some darkened corridor dragging its bad leg, occasionally grunting, still searching for one more brain to consume before something comes along and puts it out of its misery.