Facebook: the giant zombie that’s still standing
And not only for Gen Xers or Boomers
Saying “Facebook is dead” in 2025 is more a wishful slogan for some people than an accurate description of reality. The platform sits at around 3 billion monthly active users and remains the largest social network on the planet, ahead of TikTok, Instagram, and the rest. It is no longer the coolest app, but it is still the one most people open every day: more than 2 billion people use it daily.
Far from dying, Facebook is going through a deep mutation. It has moved beyond its original role as a “social network” to become an indispensable digital utility, a piece of critical infrastructure so embedded in the lives of billions that leaving it comes with a high social cost. It does not survive by being the most loved or the most innovative platform, but by being the most necessary.
From social network to public utility
Facebook no longer works as “the place on the internet” but as the running water of digital life: no one brags about it, but when it is gone, everyone notices. Globally, one of the main reasons to use social media is to stay in touch with friends and family, and Facebook is still the hub for family groups, neighbors, old classmates, and all kinds of affinity groups with people you barely know, like “travelling to London”, “going to Brazil”, “doing the moon diet, sun diet, sewn-mouth diet”, and so on. It is less a place to “post your life” and more the place where logistics, announcements, events, and family drama happen.
For Gen Z, Facebook is no longer the main stage: they prefer TikTok and Instagram to express themselves, follow trends, and consume culture. Still, many keep their account active because that is where the family, the club, the church group, Marketplace, university courses, and neighborhood messages live: it is the app of social obligation, not creative inspiration, and it is often much easier to find key information in its groups than on any other app. Meanwhile, older Millennials, Gen X, and Boomers are the ones logging in several times a day and sustaining heavy usage of the platform.
The Meta bundle: you leave, but you stay inside
The real masterstroke is not just Facebook itself, but the entire Meta ecosystem. Between Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, the company reaches close to 4 billion people using at least one of its apps every month, and more than 3.3 billion every day. This is the strategic reality behind the generational shift described above: when a Gen Z user reduces time on Facebook in favor of Instagram, they are not abandoning Meta—they are simply moving to another property inside the same “walled garden,” keeping their attention and data under the company’s control.
Another reason Facebook remains hard to quit is its role as a digital ID: it is used to log into countless websites, games, apps, and services. For years, Facebook has held a very large share of so‑called social logins, with several reports showing it powering close to or more than half of all such logins on sites that offer this option, effectively turning it into a kind of “internet ID card” for millions of people. Deleting your account does not just break family groups; it also complicates access to services where you signed up with that famous blue button.
Reels, ads, and infinite scroll fatigue
To compete with TikTok, Facebook flooded the feed with video: today a large share of in‑app time goes to video content, including Reels, which are one of the key drivers of engagement. The flip side is saturation: as videos, groups, news, Marketplace posts, and ads get mixed together, many users say they are cutting back on social media because they feel there are “too many ads” or “too much irrelevant content,” which perfectly matches the everyday experience of scrolling Facebook in 2025.
Connected… but a bit socially rusty
Research on heavy social media use shows that spending too much time on platforms like Facebook can be linked to more social comparison, emotional discomfort, and, in some cases, weaker face‑to‑face social skills. In other words: Facebook does keep its promise to keep us connected, but sometimes in such a comfortable way that it reduces the incentive (and practice) to maintain relationships offline.
Being always connected sounds great until you look closely at what happens to social skills away from the screen. Several studies with university students find that higher social media use is associated with less in‑person interaction, more social anxiety, and lower quality of offline relationships.
One study of 300 students at a private university in Lima found a highly significant inverse correlation between Facebook addiction and social skills: the more dependent they were on the platform, the worse their performance in self‑expression, asserting their rights, managing anger, and expressing disagreement. The same study reported that 10.3% of students already qualified as addicted to Facebook, and that almost 4 in 10 showed signs of deteriorated social skills—especially men, 18–19‑year‑olds, and students from certain faculties.
This suggests that, for part of its user base, the platform can function as a “substitute social reality,” creating a dependence loop that is hard to break. Facebook’s resilience would therefore not be explained only by its utility and network effects, but also by deeper psychological factors that anchor users to a digital space which, while keeping them “connected,” may be weakening their most human bonds. In this sense, the platform consolidates its dominance through a double lock‑in: an economic dependence imposed by network effects, which is socially costly to escape, and a psychological dependence, which is emotionally hard to leave.
The “Facebook is dying” storyline is catchy but wrong. The data show that its endurance does not depend on being loved, but on being indispensable. It has successfully mutated from a trendy social network into a hybrid utility, a kind of digital public service anchored by the demographic inertia of entire generations and by network effects so strong that they have become a social golden cage.
“Facebook is no longer the party; it’s the infrastructure. The question is no longer whether we use it, but what we are giving up in exchange for that permanent convenience.”
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