College Students' Love, Romance, and Life Counseling... The Disappearing '○○dae Bamboo Forest'

'Non-face-to-face School Life' Overlapped with Pandemic... Sharp Decline in Users
Korea University Closed... Yonsei University and Chung-Ang University Left as Is

"The Gode Forest has quietly reached its 10th year this year... (omitted) However, unfortunately, the Gode Forest graduated today alongside the graduates of Korea University at the 2022 academic year graduation ceremony."

According to 'Yonhap News' on the 18th, the Facebook page 'Korea University Bamboo Forest' (hereafter Gode Forest), which had nearly 360,000 followers, ended its operation on the 24th of last month. The community that had been running for 10 years has closed its doors.

Godaesup announced the closure of its last page. [Screenshot from Godaesup Facebook]

The operator of Gode Forest cited COVID-19 as the reason for closing the page. The operator stated, "Like most communities, our Gode Forest also suffered a significant blow due to COVID-19," and added, "Given Gode Forest's nature, which is closely related to on-campus events and issues, the reduction of on-campus activities was especially fatal."

They also mentioned changes in social media (SNS) usage trends. The operator explained the reason for closure, saying, "We considered moving activities to other platforms like Instagram and YouTube, but concluded that maintaining our identity on Facebook was appropriate."

Previously, the Bamboo Forest started in early September 2012 when people working in publishing created the Twitter account 'Bamboo Forest Next to the Publishing House' to share various hardships they experienced while working. After the Seoul National University Bamboo Forest page was created in 2013, the Yonsei University and Korea University Bamboo Forest pages were also established.

Students used it for academic and relationship counseling and, in 2018, as a public forum for social issues such as Me Too and feminism. However, currently, Bamboo Forest pages at various universities are announcing 'end of operation' one after another.

The 'Hanyang University Bamboo Forest' Facebook page, with about 60,000 followers, also closed last January and moved to another platform. The page currently displays a closure notice along with an official Instagram link.

In the last post, the operator said, "So much has changed since I started managing Bamboo Forest," expressing the reality of users moving to other platforms.

There are also several Bamboo Forest pages that exist but are effectively neglected. Yonsei University (about 160,000 followers) last posted in April last year, Chung-Ang University (about 59,000 followers) in January 2021, and Sungkyunkwan University (about 58,000 followers) in April 2020.

This seems partly due to the younger generation's preference for video platforms, leading to their departure from Facebook. Users have flocked to other social media like Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest, which focus on shorter texts or engaging content such as videos and images, rather than Facebook.

SNS application [Photo by Yonhap News]

WiseApp, Retail, and Goods, an app and retail analysis service, identified 'Facebook' as the app with the largest decrease in users aged 10 to 20 last November.

A sample survey of Android and iOS smartphone users aged 10 and above showed that Facebook users in their teens and twenties decreased by 270,000, from 4.29 million to 4.02 million compared to the same month the previous year.

During the same period, Instagram and Twitter users increased by 1.38 million (from 7.1 million to 8.48 million) and 640,000 (from 2.85 million to 3.49 million), respectively.

According to Mobile Index, a big data analysis solution, on the 9th, Facebook's combined monthly active users (MAU) in South Korea on Google Play Store and Apple App Store last month were counted at 9,795,810. Since Mobile Index began combined analysis of the two major app markets in May 2020, this is the first time Facebook's monthly users have fallen below 10 million.

The number of users barely exceeded 10 million in January at 10,056,845 but dropped by about 260,000 (2.6%) in just one month.