Since its launch on February 4, 2004, Facebook has been a huge success story for two Harvard students who just initially wanted to connect with their peers. Facebook now boasts of being the most extensive social networking site today. However, Malcom Gladwell, an author who writes on topics such as popularity and decision making, thinks that Facebook’s success has an expiry date which might be sooner than expected.
Facebook’s success, says Gladwell, lies not in the phenomenon of social networking. Neither does it really rely on its number of users, but rather the age of its users. Facebook’s popularity is being driven by adolescents—an age group with a very short attention span. The reason for Facebook’s success could also be the reason for its downfall.
Gladwell notes that it’s the first time in history that consumer habits are being defined by adolescents. Having teenage attention as the foundation of your enterprise is risky business. Why? Well, the generation gap doesn’t just account for differences in taste. Adolescents lack a sense of commitment to positions. Adolescents have a knack for complexity and change that other age groups don’t have. These factors put Facebook in for some potential trouble in the future.
A huge factor to Facebook’s popularity is its time-consuming apps that users love. However, most of its users are teenagers who have the luxury of having a lot of time to burn. Once these adolescents grow up and start having jobs and families, Facebook apps will lose their appeal.
Facebook’s success is reliant on an unstable market. Growing up with Facebook doesn’t translate to staying on Facebook, Gladwell stresses out. The huge majority of its users are teens whose attention spans are as fragile as flies. These users could switch loyalty as the fads come and go(note Friendster and Myspace). These users could simply grow up and lose time and interest to keep up with Facebook.
To find out more on Malcom Gladwell’s opinion on Facebook’s fragility, read his latest book “The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers.”
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