Domesticating Facebook: The Shift From Compulsive Connection to Personal Service Platform

Abstract

As one of the largest social media platforms, the meaning and role of Facebook is widely contested, where many argue that Facebook’s cultural importance especially for younger generations, is declining. Popular thinking and common assumptions often position Facebook as a boring platform taken up by older generations. Yet, despite these claims, Facebook’s user base continues to grow and it is still one of the most dominant global platforms in today’s media ecology. This article provides insight into this apparent contradiction through longitudinal research conducted with young adults, aged 18 to 30 in 2013, and aged 24 to 34 in 2017. Informed by research on youth and young adults, this article returns to domestication theory to understand how personal economies of meaning are shaped over time through changing patterns of use, in relation to an ever-evolving Facebook platform. Although respondents share contradictory accounts of their understandings of Facebook, they also share commonalities. Notably, respondents shift from a highly emotive framing of Facebook marked by “compulsive connection” in 2013 to a routinized use of Facebook for performing personal and often mundane services such as scheduling, micro coordinating, archiving, and to some extent, relationship maintenance. We argue that this shift illustrates the domestication of Facebook from a wild social space to a “personal service platform,” thus providing an important insight into Facebook’s continued user growth and cultural dominance.