Many Freshmen but Little Facebook Engagement

A new academic year has started, and a record number of more than 300 freshmen have been accepted to AUBG. The big incoming class does not demonstrate any signs of life online as first-year students show little engagement, especially in the Facebook group Class of 2026.

When a post appears in their Facebook group, it hardly receives any likes or comments. The content on the Class of 2026 also shows that more than half of the freshmen do not even open the page to see the publications. During Orientation week, the posts giving information about the schedules of the planned activities received no more than 4 likes from more than 300 freshmen.

For many freshmen, Facebook is not the preferred space for students to communicate and get important university-related information. They instead use it "to be up-to-date with news on topics of interest like Formula 1 and football," as Hary Dikov, a first-year student, said.

"Facebook is not the platform that students tend to use because of the other platforms which have taken its place in the past years," Nikoleta Kirilova, another freshman, said. "They only use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family."

When it comes to official and university-related content, they are more prone to read it from an email.

"The one thing that I will definitely check out is my email," Gabriela Stanimirova, a freshman, said.

A Facebook notification does not seem to catch the attention of the freshmen. Many of them shared they are not interested in the content of the notification or do not think of it as something important and requiring an immediate response.

"When I receive a notification from Facebook, I don’t usually look at it right away. Facebook often sends unnecessary notifications," Nikoleta said.

Facebook itself is not the only reason for freshmen’s poor online activity on that platform. Their time management and side activities also play a major role in their lack of engagement and skipping Facebook notifications.

"I do not want to use the app for too much time as there are more productive ways in which I can spend my time," Hary said.

Students from the other standings also participate in extracurricular activities, but their engagement with Facebook posts is higher. When a post about TEDxAUBG’s recruitment party appeared in the Facebook group AUBG Class of 2026, only three people reacted. In comparison to that, the same post published in AUBG Class of 2024 gathered 12 reactions. 

The newcomers from the class of 2026 are part of a generation that was brought up with new technologies and social media content on different communication channels like TikTok and Instagram.

"Platforms other than Facebook, which offer similar services, are becoming more popular among young people," Gabriela said.

Facebook appears to them old-fashioned, unattractive, and unsatisfactory.