If you're not familiar with 'moasting' then here is a typical example you'd find in a Facebook status update…
"Johnny Depp wouldn't stop talking to me in first class on my flight back from Morocco. Think it was all the free booze. FML!"
The portmanteau, formed from moaning and boasting, is one of countless new annoyances spawned in the sterilized blue and white universe of Facebook.
The site was launched in 2003, an idea plucked out of thin air that would become one of the most culturally virulent phenomena of the 21st century. But are we growing sick of it? No one seems sure. There are plenty of hunches though.
At present, the site has some 750 million (five times the population Russia) users and is still growing, albeit slower than ever. That may not seem such a bad statistic, but one of the concerns is that a high percentage of those joining now are over 50. Is that bad or good? Well, kind of both.
On one hand, the over 50s are far more lucrative a market than the under 20s, so Facebook are happy. On the other, nothing will make teens and young adults desert anything faster than an influx of codgers. Put twenty tweed-jacketed gentlemen in a music shop and you'll see teenagers pouring out onto the street like rats from a sinking dingy.
Compounding the credibility deficit is the illogical scourge of companies with Facebook pages. Why would you follow Fairy Washing Up liquid on Facebook? Who would do that? What sort of person would want to know what Andrex toilet roll liked, or would poke Tetley's tea bags? Who are these people? Is it you? If it is, I forbid you from reading my words.
So, anyway, how do the experts explain the decline? Is it Facebook fatigue? Is there a new kid on the block? Has the website's ubiquity made it passé? Well, some seem to think it's just a matter of time.
You may not be surprised to learn that predicting internet patterns is big business, with shelf life being one of the major concerns.
Current thinking by influential bloggers such as Crigley on Technology suggest that not only are we coming to the end of a trend cycle, but that these cycles are getting shorter and that Facebook will have peaked by 2014 before a rapid decline, taking the whole social networking ship down with it.
What happens then is largely speculation, with most expecting the site to evolve much as Myspace did, moving into the music sphere after it's shortcomings floated to the top.
Meanwhile, Google have made an attempt to get involved, with their innovative but half hearted Google+ that combines Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and others into a giant pile of steaming networking, that is just as likely to revolutionise the entire sphere as it is to kill it completely.
But it's not really solving the problem. The problem is the whole idea of minute by minute updates on the insignificant details of everyone's supposedly brilliant lives are getting tiresome. Scrap that, are tiresome.
Not only that, but population Facebook is beginning to wonder whether surrendering their privacy is such a good idea. They're clawing back their personal space from what was once an arena for like-minded young people, and now a platform increasingly infiltrated by parents and saturated by businesses.
Now, everybody set their status to: "Posting your status on Facebook is worthless. It's annoying for you and a waste of my time. I'm just like you – not really that interesting. My last holiday was just ok, but mostly a waste of money and despite the nice pictures with my boy/girlfriend, we've been fighting a lot and we'll probably break up. P.S. Your kids look weird. Post this to your Facebook if you agree! Nom nom nom, OMG, FML, LOL!"
Feeling anti-social? What's your view of social networks?
