Is Britain fed up with Facebook?

With roughly half the UK population signed up to Facebook, there is no question that the social networking phenomenon has taken the country by storm. But with reports of a notable decline in user numbers in the UK as well as in the US, it would seem that our fascination is starting to fade. So what is potentially fuelling the decline?

Some people believe that Facebook has simply reached the natural limit of people who want to be engaged with social networking in the UK. Others seem to think that the eagerly anticipated Facebook iPad app will put user numbers back on track when launched. I would suggest that some of the main contributing factors to ‘Facebook fatigue’ could include the following:

• Worthwhile new features need to be added to keep users engaged
• Some people are beginning to reject the notion of giving up their privacy in exchange for non-stop communication
• Social networking can be addictive and waste too much of our time
• Facebook has been spending too much time focusing on developing countries, and neglecting established user bases in the process

Whether it reaches its goal of one billion users, or goes the way of Myspace over the next few years, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for the World’s biggest social networking service. Or will the Chinese buy it first?