Two things happened last week which made me question the power and real-life value of the popular networking website Facebook.

Firstly, I read a news article saying that youth are using Facebook less. I think it was on the BBC news website, although I can’t find it now. It was one of those that caught my attention because it appeared to suggest the opposite to what you might expect – that social media and living online is still taking over the world, and therefore surely it’s getting more and more popular with the youngsters. Of course it may be one just one angle of research or a survey, but still it does make you think that maybe it’s at saturation point, and infact youth are understanding the importance of other ways of socialising and interacting other than Facebook, hopefully off line rather than just other popular online networks instead.  

The second was at a residents meeting I was chairing the other weekend for a housing estate. We didn’t know who would attend, and the expectation was that it would be around 20. Formal letters were sent out, and the word on the street set in motion. The final ingredient was Facebook of course – a residents group was already in operation so I braved a status update and prepared for any back lash. I had a call from residents the day before saying it has spread to other local resident groups on Facebook who thought that they were involved, and then when I turned up to the meeting venue the person who was managing the location had ‘heard’ on Facebook that maybe 150 people were stomping down to the meeting with all kinds of gripes. Yikes.  

In the end though we only had 6, and paired from each house so actually only 3 homes. We all concluded what a false world Facebook had created – interesting how people had vented their concerns, but nothing had materialised in terms of ‘off line’ action.   I think it re-iterates an important limitation and even danger of Facebook and other online social media mediums – they can spiral off and have little relevance to the issues at hand. Yes of course they can be a great way of effective and rapid communication to many people, and infact a great way for people to really say what they think rather than hiding behind things. But the down side is that they can create a false world and expectation, so much so that the momentum can imply a far greater ‘force’ then what happens in reality.

Maybe this is what youngsters today and instinctively sensing, who knows. The answer I guess is to know the limitations, and manage correctly.