Teens Leaving Facebook: Could The Social Media Giant Become Obsolete in 10 Years?

idealmike Level X³

August 1, 2016, 4:37 pm

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Facebook has grown from strength to strength since its early days and conception of being Mark Zuckerburg's idea of connecting students with other students. These days it connects people around the world with other people in the world including your friends and family and is now one of the biggest and most used Social Networking sites in the world. Well it used to be...

What with technology changing and more social media sites showing up such as Instagram and Snapchat, Facebook is facing a lot of competition and many of its younger users moving away from Facebook and using other social media sites instead.

There's a very genuine reason for this and the general consensus is that teenagers feel like Facebook is "the mom and dad version of Instagram and Twitter". In fact, in a study done by Bianca Bosker from the Huffington Post who interviewed many 13-16 year olds about their use of Facebook has discovered that many of them don't even use Facebook anymore and prefer to use those social media sites where their parents aren't likely to be!

The younger generation has always been able to adapt to changes in technology much quicker than the older ones can. While teenagers are usually able to adapt to changes and make the switch without any qualms, the older generation are done trying new things and are happy where they are.

A survey and experiment by Daily Dot shows that Instagram is the most used social networking site and has actually surpassed Facebook by amount of users with Twitter coming in a close 3rd. These statistics are staggeringly different to how things used to be just over a year ago that showed how Facebook was the preferred social networking site for teenagers.

The survey shows that sharing on Facebook has declined from 42% to just 23% in just over a year! Twitter itself is actually making a comeback as a site where people share things and Instagram is growing as a sharing platform also. However one thing Facebook has going for it, is that they own Instagram so the users aren't really leaving Facebook behind for good. They're still under the Facebook umbrella.

Eric Lang from Daily Dot says that "It’s easier for teens to switch over because they’re still in their exploratory phase, but for parents, they’re done exploring. They’re good."

This is backed up by the former Facebook CFO David Ebersman who agrees and says that "while parents registered to Facebook to see what they're kids were up to they also discovered it a fun place to be and have got used to that and the hang of using it and don't feel the need to use other social sites".

Now with teens moving away from Facebook and using alternative social media sites and apps like Snapchat, it could be that Facebook's popularity could dwindle and end up like how Myspace did. Myspace? What's Myspace?

What do you think?

Do you think Facebook is going to become obsolete in the next 10 years?

Are the rise of other social media sites the cause for its dwindling use?

Will Facebook end up like Myspace one day?

Comments

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Cristian

Facebook definitely needs to change its views and adapt to the future. This is why Facebook is buying companies left and right so that nobody will rise up to challenge their place.
Instagram is owned by Facebook so even if Instagram becomes more popular, Facebook will still win in the end.
But overall I believe that this is true, nobody wants to hang out on a website where their parents can see their every move online. Young people today are moving to private chat groups in Whatsapp where they can share pretty much anything, just like in Facebook, but with a better resolution for pictures.

I think Facebook is to big to fail at the moment, in my opinion, same as Google. To make these two monsters fall, something extraordinary has to be invented.

10 years ago

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TommyCarey

Teenagers see this as an invasion of privacy and that's why they're jumping ship. The amount of "users" won't dwindle since facebook never deletes anything lol. But the activity per day will decrease over time if the teens keep going to different platforms where their parents aren't.

I know when I was younger I didn't want my mom knowing exactly what me and my friends were doing. It wasn't "cool" in my opinion and I just wanted to hang out with my friends haha. I'm sure that's how teens are now still, they want to be their own person and not watched by their parents. And if their parents are on facebook watching what they post, they won't be posting there for long. Obviously the teen can just deny the friend request of their parent and set their privacy settings so nothing shows up, but imagine the fight that would start Teens Leaving Facebook: Could The Social Media Giant Become Obsolete in 10 Years?

Teens Leaving Facebook: Could The Social Media Giant Become Obsolete in 10 Years?

Like Cristian said, if instagram does become the Mecca for teens, facebook will still win since they own it. I know snapchat is pretty huge with teens since the images get deleted right away. You can screenshot the pictures that are snapped, but the user gets notified if someone does. Well at least a year ago the person was notified, and I know this because I screenshot one of my friends snaps and she freaked out lol Teens Leaving Facebook: Could The Social Media Giant Become Obsolete in 10 Years?

It wasn't anything scandalous, it was a snap of a nice car that I liked and wanted to show someone. And we all know that snapchat snaps die quick unless you screenshot them Teens Leaving Facebook: Could The Social Media Giant Become Obsolete in 10 Years?

10 years ago

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CryptoGuru

I can see how teenagers are jumping ship when it comes to face book, there are a lot of privacy concerns when it comes to face book, as far as the social media giant becoming obsolete in ten years I highly doubt that any thing like that can and would really happen seems we evolve so do these social media platforms remember how it all started from sites like MySpace and now we have managed to work out selves up to face books and insta grams I do not think it will go obsolete I do think the way we do social media will change with the times though but the world won't just unconnected it self

10 years ago

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Everett

Wow, this is very interesting to hear that teens are leaving Facebook. I know before they launched the site publicly the site was targeted to college aged students, and locally to the specific college. Then after that, they made it college wide, and after that global. Now the target audience is adults in their late 20s early 30s I think I saw somewhere.. maybe early 40s?

Anyways, I wouldn't say Facebook is gonna fall to it's demise anytime soon as a lot of businesses have basically teamed up with Facebook as a platform to speak directly to their customers in a quick manner. The question remains: Will FB get back the teen audience?

10 years ago

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Lynne

Oh wow, this is very interesting. I can certainly see why teenagers wouldn't want their parents seeing what they are up to. I never really thought of that. So if all the teenagers move elsewhere what will happen to Facebook in a good few years?

Yes I am sure teenagers have no interest in being where their parents are, but the teenage years are only a few years so perhaps when they hit 20 and want to start a business they will join Facebook because a Facebook page and Facebook groups are a great way to promote your business.

I think one of the main things about a social network for me and why I won't leave Facebook is because everyone I know is on Facebook. It is the one social network that covers everything for me. There are even a few groups for the town I am in so I can keep up to date with what is happening in my town.

I think right now Facebook is still coming out tops. If teenagers are jumping ship all over the place they might find when they are a little older that they would like to focus on one social network where all their family is.

10 years ago

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Everett

I think Facebook will continue to come about nicely. They may not have many younger ones (13+) on the site (what age can you join facebook??), and I tend to believe that is a good thing. Surely there is all sorts of privacy options a parent could enable for their child and that is fantastic.

Another thing is, should parents follow their children around the internet and stalk their accounts? When do parents draw the line? Do they draw the line? I probably would stalk my own children, however since that is years a head there would probably be something better than a 'social network'.

10 years ago

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hitmeasap

Honestly speaking.. I would love to see Facebook being buried.. but I truly doubt that will ever happen. Mark and his minions are probably WAY to powerful to fear anything by now. Whenever they find a company who's trying to "beat them" in any way, they'll just buy the whole company. That's the power they have. And that's how powerful money is.. Just think about it.. If you came up with a SUPER idea.. And Mark gave you a billion dollars for it.. Wouldn't you accept the deal? - I know I would!

I bet they'll be even bigger in a few more years, especially as they keep improving the site.. But I would love to see them on their knees, begging for people to come back.

Mark. If you see this. Send me a payment of $3,000,000 and I'll start to use my private account again. Cheers!

10 years ago

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vinaya

Sometime back, I read a research paper on social media. It said the most active demography on facebook is 45-55 years. The same age group is also active on twitter. This indicated that facebook and twitter have now become platform social networking platforms for old people and young people are either not active on facebook or not even on facebook. The research paper also said that Pinterest has more young users compared to facebook and twitter.
I think in the years to come young people will choose newer social media platforms instead of the old giants.

9 years ago

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Corzhens

Based on what I see, I don't believe that teens are actually leaving Facebook. Take note of the 2 billion users that include the parents, siblings, cousins and friends of the teen so it doesn't make sense to leave Facebook just like that. And if their purpose for leaving Facebook is to hide from their parents or teachers, we already know what kind of teens we are talking about. And I believe that they are a very small minority of teenagers in Facebook.

9 years ago

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