Study reveals shocking truth: Most Facebook apps are silly, pointless

(Credit: FlowingData)

The world of social networking may never be the same.

A new study from number-crunching firm Flowing Data did some eye-opening work recently, dividing 23,160 Facebook applications into 22 categories. A whopping 9,601 of them fall into Facebook's "just for fun" category, followed by "gaming" and "sports" with over 2,000 each. In other words, the majority of Facebook applications are goofy time-wasters.

This is an unsettling piece of news that I don't think any of us saw coming.

It's true, though. Since the debut of Facebook's developer platform, there has been an onslaught of annoy-your-friends applications like Slide's SuperPoke and popular gaming apps like Scrabulous. But really "useful" applications have yet to make the same kind of splash, despite a few promising debuts like Six Apart's Blog It and quasi-promising ones like the "social college application" widget.

[basraw]

Parking Wars application is addictive!

I love the Parking Wars game there and play it daily.

[dabrace1984]

Facebook Apps

Facebook Apps may be "Just for Fun" and silly but at least they are
not as annoying as Myspace profiles. After all, Facebook Apps, can
at least be collapsed so you only see the ones that you are
interested in.

[bjdooley]

...and how is this a surprise?

Absolutely predictable, given the profile for mobile phone applications and the like. The only thing that surprises me is that any one could conceivably not have guessed this was the case!

[Newspeak finder]

Wow

No-one saw this coming? The author and who else?

[AlphaKonare]

This IS surprising...

... only because the proportion of useless applications isn't grater than what the article states. I'm a long time facebook user, and I would really appreciate it if someone could show me some apps that arguably are not a silly/pointless waste of time.

[Hank Mehle]

Surprising?

Not at all. According to my own primary research 99.9% of all human endeavor falls into the "silly/pointless" category.

[stenito]

So...

Take away the useless, silly, pointless apps and...? what's left? Exactly: near to nothing!

[treespotter]

And you need a research for that?!?

The fact that you need a research for that shows how much hyped up Facebook really is.

[oddpodz]

didn't some kids write a song about that?

I'm getting bored of facebook? (find it on youtube) Title shows bad command of grammar, but the idea is the same - lots of stupid applications muck up the user experience.

[anspn]

schoolspace prek-12 application on facebook

I am not sure that entertainment is necessarily pointless.

In anycase, we have created an education/utility app called schoolspace - you can check it out: http://apps.facebook.com/schoolspace/

[lrosen9999]

Why is this a bad thing?

Social networks are the Net Generation's version of the mall, bowling alley or any other teen hangout that is no longer safe. What did teens do at the mall? Have fun, gossip, play around, act silly and do things that would be classified as "shocking" according to this study. People have to be aware that MySpace and Facebook are the teen and young adult major social outlet and they are doing exactly what one would predict, acting social and acting their age while playing. I am neither surprised, nor shocked.

My research with more than 2,500 social networkers and 1,000 of their parents confirm these assertions as does my book, "Me, MySpace, and I: Parenting the Net Generation." For more information on my work, please visit www.Me-MySpace-and-I.com or email me at [e-mail]