We have an obligation to help others join us & ditch Facebook's negative impact

Not everyone has been lucky enough to have been introduced and become a part of the community here on Steemit . When we have seen and participated in Steemit and realized how much is wrong with the vaguely similar but fundamentally and sociologically sub par network we all know ; Facebook , then I believe that in itself both places a slight degree of responsibility and entitlement for us to actively inform and motivate those who do not know a superior alternative exists.

In recent months especially it has become quite clear that many , many facebook users are less than impressed with the platform they once were all for . This is not a baseless statement , when the statistical applications that monitor the web and provide deep , highly structured and accurate statistical analysis of a given website or service , show that user retention among other key components related to Facebook and its current state are far from the impressive numbers seen 4-5 years ago and in fact appear to be on the decline in many areas where Facebook was once able to boast about how impressive these stats were. This tells me that, what better of a time to start to gradually implement change than now?

Facebook is losing young users even quicker than expected, according to new estimates by eMarketer.

The digital measurement firm predicted last year that Facebook would see a 3.4 percent drop in 12- to 17-year-old users in the U.S. in 2017, the first time it had predicted a drop in usage for any age group on Facebook.

The reality: The number of U.S. Facebook users in the 12- to 17-year-old demographic declined by 9.9 percent in 2017, eMarketer found, or about 1.4 million total users. That’s almost three times the decline expected. There were roughly 12.1 million U.S. Facebook users in the 12- to 17-year-old demographic by the end of the year.

Overall, eMarketer found Facebook lost about 2.8 million U.S. users under 25 last year.

And Facebook’s 2018 doesn’t look much better.

The research firm released Facebook usage estimates for 2018 on Monday, and expects that Facebook will lose about 2.1 million users in the U.S. under the age of 25 this year.

EMarketer predicts that Facebook will see a decline in usage among all three age groups for people under 25:

A 5.6 percent decline in users between 12 and 17 years old.
A 5.8 percent decline in users between 18 and 24 years old. This is the first time eMarketer has ever predicted a year-over-year decline in usage for this age group, though it has happened before. In 2016, Facebook’s user base for 18- to 24-year-olds fell by 1.5 percent.

-source:https://www.recode.net/2018/2/12/16998750/facebooks-teen-users-decline-instagram-snap-emarketer

The fact that eMarketer is predicting declines across the board is a bad sign for Facebook regardless. Young people offer a good barometer for what is popular, but more importantly for Facebook, losing out on the next generation of internet users in the U.S. is troubling for the company’s long-term dominance.

It only makes sense that in a time like this , we who have found a alternative which is sound in its intention and a place where the broad social web community can grow and flourish without the many averse and pervasive ideals and standards which are unavoidable when using Facebook , enlighten and educate those who have not yet been introduced to Steemit with the ultimate goal of abandoning Facebook all together. Of course Steemit as it is now is hardly ready for a mass migration from facebook to its platform and there are some key elements to sort out before that will be possible , but neither is a process to happen overnight , it will take time and the road may be long with unexpected roadblocks that will need to be hurdled but nothing that is outside of the realm of possible by any means .
Whenever I think about this and start to doubt the possibility of Steemit one day replacing facebook I look to the top left of the screen at the Steemit logo and read the words "beta" spelled next to it and I smile to myself realizing that we should be just fine.

Even more fitting to the notion of converting unsure and disgruntled Facebook users to the Steemit platform is we all possess the skills to do so and it is evident everyday in our posts and discussions. nonetheless it is not as if Steemit is a hard sell to anyone interested in and drawn to the idea of social sharing of ideas , stories, experiences and so on. Imagine if every lost Facebook user this year became a new Steemit user? According to the data above , those numbers as an increase of Steemians could be just the quintessential growth Steemit needs to develop into its next stage of development , imagine all the exciting new influence and the addition of features brought on by such an influx of new influencers!