| I notice similar in my case and case of my friends (born between 1985-1990). I've seen fair share of new services and social networks being branded as "Facebook killer" in last 10 years but for me group texting was the thing that replaced the main use case of Facebook and Instagram - sharing important/funny/interesting moments and stuff with friends and family. Back in the day I could use IRC or some messengers for this, but Facebook was the first to enable this at scale. Afterwards messaging apps (Viber in case of my country but I guess Telegram/WhatsApp for the rest of the world) made this more convenient but also more intimate/rewarding. We don't have mutes or bans in our group texts. Discussions, even political ones, don't blow up like on Twitter. There's less incentive for things to go crazy when you're exchaning intersting/important stuff with people you know and care about. Also, before Facebook I created and administreted phpBB forum for the same group of friends. We were in late teens, early 20s at that point so the main topics were "What are you listening too?", "What are you drinking tonight?", "How was Saturday night for you" (but also topics around literature, comic books, movies, video games). I get similar vibes from our group texts that I had on that forum more than 15 years ago. |
Might satisfy you but it's a different use case