Reuters and market research firm Ipsos, who employs the tagline “Nobody’s unpredictable,” deployed an online poll of 1,032 Americans, regarding Facebook, that ran over the course of five days. The poll found that 34 percent of Facebook users were spending less time on Facebook than they were six months ago. Basically, one third of the people who took the survey are either having really rockin’ lives all of a sudden and are too busy to check into their social network, or they’re getting more bored with Facebook. Unfortunately for those who wish rockin’ lives upon strangers, the reason given for using Facebook less wasn’t that their regular lives are now awesome, it’s that they now find Facebook “boring,” “not relevant,” or “not useful.”

The poll also found that 20 percent of users are using Facebook more than they were six months ago, so that’s also something to note. 44 percent of people who took the survey said that the way the market responded to the Facebook IPO — which didn’t blow anyone’s minds — have made them feel less favorable toward Facebook, which would help explain the drop in usage from only half a year ago. Amusingly, 46 percent of people said the way the Facebook IPO went down made them less favorable of investing money in the stock market in general.

Two out of every five people who took the survey said they used Facebook every day, and around half of the users said they use Facebook roughly as much as they did six months ago, so it’s not all doom and gloom. The most active group of Facebook users are between the ages 18-34, while the least active group of Facebook users are over the age of 55. Makes a bit of sense for a tech-based product.

However, what would worry Facebook more than a minority percentage of users claiming they’re becoming bored with the network, is that 80 percent of those surveyed claimed they’ve never bought a product or service as a result of ads on the site. As someone who works on the Internet and is entrenched in video game and television media, I always wonder if ads “work” on people as frequently as they appear in media. With regards to Facebook, at least, it seems that they don’t.

Of course, any product that has been around a while will suffer its users becoming bored with it. Do you play the same, singular video game all the time? If it’s an MMO, do you only do the one activity in it? Do you only watch the same season of the one television show over and over? Granted, Facebook is supposed to be for communication, something people don’t generally become bored with, but it’s entirely possible the platform on which the communication happens can become tedious after a while, or at least lose its luster.

If Facebook is a fad, which many think it is, it’s a fad that sure seems to have quite a bit of lasting power.

(via Reuters)

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