Personally I stopped using Facebook because even in the before-AI days it started becoming a glamour photo book of everyone you ever knew (and probably lots of people you only kind of sorta know), and while people certainly deserve to do and see great things, seeing it all shoved in your face every day becomes exhausting in a keeping-up-with-the-joneses kind of way.

I totally get that not everybody is like that, but I am, and so I stopped going to Facebook.

These days I'm in private Whatsapp groups for my direct family and so I learn about what they do, and not the random stuff that my neighbors and 20-years-past classmates did.

My wife is still active on Facebook and I actually do still visit occasionally to boost her posts but that's about it.

I'm a dad that stopped using facebook when I got divorced, so there's a bit of anecdata for you

I would say their priorities changed. They spent less time with social media and just did other things.

Or possibly 'men find the algorithmic/consumption based platforms relatively more appealing' and so were quicker to leave

Similar experience for me and it’s just been replaced with… nothing. My gaming buddies talk on Discord but I just don’t really hear from my aunts and uncles and cousins anymore. It’d be a hassle to even figure out how to contact them. Only 13 people showed up to my high school reunion last year from a graduating class of ~400.

In my part of Europe it’s all in private WhatsApp groups (one for inner family, one for friends, etc)

Folks around me use mostly Instagram which ironically is also from Meta.

Zuck is always one step ahead.

I am in my mid forties and most people around me seem to use instagram to share memes and stuff + keep contact with rarely seen friends and whatsapp groups for closest more tightknit circles.

I am still on whatsapp but I am planning on nuking my account in september after a large event involving people from various continents. I have no idea if I will be able to stay directly in touch with those people after that, probably not.

I am still unsure if I'll send a message to most of my contacts or if I'll just tell my nuclear family, in laws and closest friends.

Not parent, but, depressingly:

  1. Signal
  2. BlueSky
  3. Discord
  4. WhatsApp
  5. SMS

Can't speak for OP but my spouse has set up a private GroupMe for posting events for a group, but otherwise everyone shares pictures using text messages. We don't post any pictures of our kid where strangers can easily get access to them and we've read the privacy policy of every service we've ever used.

I was considering self-hosting something for a while but she found it more sensible to do it this way.

Every once in a while she logs into Facebook to post something on Marketplace and immediately gets completely sidetracked by their algorithm and design. Then she gets frustrated and we just put the thing she wanted to sell on the corner instead.

Similar experience for me and at this point it's just a collection of private chats. Different groups use different platforms (mine are on iMessage, Whatsapp, Signal, Slack, and.. actually Messenger although apparently Facebook is taking that away soon). It kind of feels like real-name social media is a failed experiment at this point.

Nothing, the sharing has stopped.

Close friends and family: group chats (whatsapp, signal)

Distant friends and extended family: email threads

Almost all chat threads in messages, signal, or occasionally in slack or discord or something else.

Personally, it’s all through WhatsApp

Text messages, email. Same as ever.

I'm probably a bit younger than the gp, but I can confidently say that all socializing has moved almost entirely off "social media" and onto group chats. Most people have a dozen or more combinations of friends and families on multiple apps, all trying to replace what was once easy.

I'd love if somebody would make a site based on the ~2010 expectations (not reality) of facebook. Ban any commercial activity and make people pay for it. I just want to talk to my friends and say "happy birthday" to somebody I haven't seen in years, not look at ads and slop posts.

Group chats on various apps

iMessages (which supports groups well with RCS), Signal, Telegram, GroupMe. Slack, IRC, and Zulip for online groups.

(early 40s)

I think it's more like the husbands left the platform first.

Probably mean that their husbands were the first to quit Facebook.

The implication is that they got divorced.

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