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Do you really hate Facebook? Or is it just because you're supposed to?
Mon, 25th Aug 2014
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Most people I know say they hate Facebook, and complain about how boring it is on a regular basis.

I think it is boring as hell but yet I go on it every single day, at work, at home, on my phone. Facebook has done what the cellphone did – become such a huge part of everyday life that it feels weird not to use it.

Studies are showing that young people are still using the site in greater numbers and more frequently than any other social media service.

But surely this goes against everything we’ve read, and everything young people say about Facebook – that’s it’s dated, it’s not cool, it’s dead? The cool kids headed to Instagram and other people only went onto Facebook to communicate with people “overseas”. Okay. Sure.

Facebook is certainly dated and certainly not cool, but it is far from dead. For some, Facebook has become a chore that needs to be done, like clearing emails. It has become so engrained into what we do every day that we have to check it.

People love to complain about things, and when things aren’t cool anymore, people love to complain about the uncool thing and how much it bothers their cool lives. Instead of just, I don’t know, closing their accounts, people have to use Facebook just because. It’s like supermarkets.

Cool people can complain all they like about how uncool Countdown is compared to some smaller organic shop like Nosh or a Farmers’ Market, but truth of the matter is, you have to go to the supermarket, because, well, just because. Facebook is Countdown.

Facebook has come a long way of funny status updates – it has become a whole variety of services that we need that it can’t just be replaced. We use it to search contacts, to find people from the past or from that party last weekend, to find products and services, and it’s how we self promote.

It’s how we remain in other people’s lives without being in them at all. And because Facebook doesn’t require any effort really, its convenience far outweighs its uncoolness. So hate it we may, but it will forever stay.