I read a similar article a while back and found this interesting. It breaks FB users into 4 general classes.
https://qz.com/1026914/the-four-typ...ders-window-shoppers-town-criers-and-selfies/
Relationship Builders:
Window Shoppers/People watchers:
Town Criers: The members of this faction are often sounding alarms on big issues, and passing along the latest memes,
Selfies: primarily to call attention to themselves.. Energized and validated by likes and comments..
I did a 3-4month FB hiatus late last year and found I couldn't do without it.
1. For some people this is the ONLY way to interact with them. They no longer email. If I want to keep up with them its FB or nothing. FB was the ONLY channel for getting info on a high school reunion earlier this year.
2. Targeted special interest groups: Cast Iron, Victory Vision motorcycles (FB is about the only way to find parts), other hobbies. There might be forums/BBs, but a lot smaller populations.
2a) Targeted buy/sell/trade audiences in the above special interest groups
Personally, I think FB is one of the big drivers of the polarization of society. FB could fix this if it modeled real world social interaction vs. blatantly just trying to increase volume. We all have topics that we will discuss with Friend X, but its a taboo subject with Friend Y. FB defaults to everything being "public"... and a lot of people have no idea how to control who sees what.
In real life, people routinely filter what they say to which audience. FB defaults to no filters and what limited filters FB has are either insufficient or unknown by most users.
I'll stay off the new censorship muscles that FB et. al. is now starting to flex more blatantly.
FB, IMO, is becoming both more necessary (only effective com channel available) and more evil at the same time.