Researchers John Cannarella and Joshua Spechler at Princeton University have recently used epidemiological models to predict and describe the inevitable decline in Facebook’s popularity. Whilst 21st Century cynic in all of us may relish in the comparison of Facebook to the bubonic plague, even as someone who has never used Facebook it is difficult for me to deny the unique niche this particular social media parawebsite occupies.

Analogies can, however, be useful to us sometimes simply because they are…well, simple. We were recently set coursework that involved using cars and car parks as an analogy for community ecology. It’s much more efficient to identify makes and models of cars than particular species of grasses; or to mark, release and recapture mobile specimens. Similarly, with over 1 billion unique users in over 210 countries, obtaining a representative sample across Facebook’s demographic will prove difficult. Epidemics specifically could be a useful comparison in the sense that either a cure, immunity or containment will be developed in time. Social phenomenons are fickle and, arguably, ‘immunity’ could represent the novelty of social networking sites wearing off.

However, this analogy fails to account for competition. Facebook once shared a niche with Myspace – a niche which was eventually partitioned, with the latter site being forced to focus on a musical audience instead to prevent itself from being outcompeted. Whilst other social networking sites undoubtedly exist, none occupy the same niche. Instagram and Tumblr are predominantly image-focused, whilst Twitter carries a 140 character limit. Frankly, there just isn’t anywhere for Facebook users to go. The idea of comparing social network ‘immunity’ to disease immunity is also flawed – the latter arises from physiology, whilst the former arises from changing social trends, which are far more difficult to predict and control variables for.

Undoubtedly, the lure of the convenience of Facebook keeps many of its users active, and inevitably a more convenient, user-friendly model will come along one day. I don’t doubt for a second that the time will come for Facebook to be ‘eradicated’ like the plague. However, I simply do not think that the public will ‘jump ship’ if they will simply be jumping overboard.