Comment by CivBase
5 years ago
I'm not so sure about that. What value does Facebook offer that isn't done better by a dozen other platforms? Most people I talk to openly admit it provides them with no value, but they still idly scroll through their feeds day after day and can never bring themselves to ditch the platform. Simply put, they're addicted. Facebook is widely hated yet wildly successful because they have mastered psychological manipulation.
Speaking for myself as a light FB user in the US, I get a ton of value from seeing my relatives' updates. Otherwise, I would have no connection with the next generation of babies in my family.
I generally find this line of thinking problematic: conversations with a homogenous and small group -> generalization based on an interpretation of their interpretation of their experience.
Also objectionable but on the other side: people's revealed preferences for how they spend their time are better indicators of what they find valuable.
Neither explanation is particularly compelling except as confirmation bias IMO.
I was providing a quick and simple example, not making a generalization about all Facebook users. Just as my anecdotal evidence does not necessarily demonstrate an addiction problem across all Facebook users, your anecdotal evidence does not demonstrate a lack thereof.
The point is that there are users whose use of a service is driven by psychological manipulation, not by a value proposition. The relationship between many people I know and Facebook is merely an example.
There are also users whose use of a service is driven by direct value received (connecting with families, for free). Both can be asserted as true, both carry very little informative value as statements. The strongest statement that this leads to is something like "some users are manipulated, some receive value."
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