This story says that, in total numbers, Facebook looks as popular as ever.

Underneath those numbers, however, are people who are leaving because they think they are too tethered to it or because it is time to go elsewhere.

Facebook has felt, to its main users, as if it is a social support system online.

Is it? Depends upon whom you ask.

Why or why not does it fit into the user’s life now, as opposed to six months ago? Depends upon whom you ask.

Facebook’s future rests on the answer.

Facebook began with kids and quickly added adults, the cooler they are, the sooner they signed up.

The other reason, though, for an online social support system is a serious illness. At those times, you want to take no risks that unauthorized information about a patient is shared.

Remember, if you want or need to share information about a patient to a large number of people, there is a non-profit which offers caringbridge.com. You set up a secure, password-protected website. Access is only available to people who have the password.

It is free. You can use it as long as you like.  If the patient dies, and you want to leave the site up for a time so that those with access can learn the news or post a comment, that’s fine, too.

New York Times

…“The exodus is not evident from the site’s overall numbers. According to comScore, Facebook attracted 87.7 million unique visitors in the United States in July. But while people are still joining Facebook and compulsively visiting the site, a small but noticeable group are fleeing — some of them ostentatiously.”

…”Many seem to have just lost their appetite for it: they just stopped wanting to look at other people’s photos and résumés and updates, or have their own subject to scrutiny. Some ex-users seemed shaken, even heartbroken, by their breakups with Facebook.”

Source: New York Times, August 30, 2009