The Merrill Dubrow Blog

Yes, it’s true! Facebook is losing its younger audience. First, let’s clarify: by “young”, we’re talking about 13-17 year olds, the “teenage” demographic. According to Facebook’s quarterly reports, 83% of internet users are signed up for Facebook and 55% of those users check-in daily. While these numbers indicate a huge market share, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat all saw a growth in teenage users in 2013 but Facebook saw a decline. In fact, more than 12 million teens have left Facebook since 2011.

Why is this?

For a few reasons: The teenage culture is submersed in live technology; they’ve never known life without updates from tablets, smart phones or social media. They are focused on sharing immediate activities and real-time updates with their peers, which makes personally interactive and feed-based social apps like Snapchat or Instagram more appealing. Comparatively, the Facebook app is more cluttered and slower than the Instagram, Snapchat or Twitter app. Even the difference of 2-3 seconds matters when updating real-time activities.

Additionally, changes within Facebook have not been helpful in the attraction of teen users. Changes in the privacy settings now allow teen users to post public updates and interact with public users (previously the platform prevented teens from interacting with people outside of their “friends of friends”) has some parents worried about the safety of teens on Facebook, and, in turn, encouraging their teen to go elsewhere for social interaction. Facebook ads, sponsored posts, sponsored pages and corporate updates are of little interest to teens. At this stage of their life, teens are looking for social media to update and interact with friends, the ads and corporate presence is frustrating to them.

So, when teens examine the offerings of social media platforms and apps: they simply opt out of Facebook and turn to more personalized, interaction-based platforms like Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat.

• As a teenager, which social media platform do you primarily use? Why?

• As a parent of a teenager, do you monitor your child’s use of social media and do you have a preference on which platforms your teen uses?

• For any generation, have you made a shift in your social media presence within the past year? What have you changed and why?

I look forward to reading your comments.

Laurel Glenn
Social Media Analyst, M/A/R/C Research
2012 University of Missouri School of Journalism Graduate, Emphasis in Social Media Studies
24 Year Old, Millennial Generation Representative
Tweets publically under the alias: @SociaLaurel

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