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Researchers Claim Facebook Is 'Dead and Buried' To Many Young Users
JoeyRox writes "The recent decline in Facebook's popularity with teenagers appears to be worsening. A Global Social Media Impact study of 16 to 18 year olds found that many considered the site 'uncool' and keep their profiles alive only to keep in touch with older relatives, for whom the site remains popular. Researches say teens have switched to using WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Twitter in place of Facebook."
Personally I find that Facebook has too many features. It sort of reminds me of Microsoft Office with this endless parade of new tiny and mostly useless features.
I think that this is where the snapchats and twitters do so very well. With a very simple core feature set it is not hard to keep focused on what works. But with facebook it almost seems like they don't want to leave anything out just in case some competitor comes along and eats their lunch.
I think it all boils down to the question: what is Facebook? With the highly successful recent upstarts that is an easy thing to answer. But with facebook the question is actually quite complex. It is very difficult for facebook to be so much to so many.
To sum it up they have lost their 30 second elevator pitch. But maybe with this information Facebook will realize that their core audience aren't teenyboppers but adults and thus will focus their feature set in that direction.
Agreed.
I'm 25, I stopped using facebook about 2 years ago (suspended my account even, email spam is annoying).
I signed up to twitter, I still have my account, but honestly I don't think I ever looked at twitter after creating an account, I'm not even sure what my username is.
Communication is personal, not "lets spam the world with my words". I have a phone, I text and call people I actually want to communicate with. I have skype and IRC for online / casual discussions with people who aren't in my immediate world. Forums and mailing lists for more technical and important things. Email covers everything else.
Needless to say, with the above tools at my, far more appropriate disposal - there's literally no need, want, or remote desire for facebook, nor twitter. Nor was there ever.
Funny, I just had a conversation with the same answer from my low 20-somethings sister. She never uses Facebook and chats with instagram and snapchat. Seems inefficient, but maybe that's just me!
She does have a twitter account--a marketing course in one of her college classes required all the students to open a twitter account. If THAT'S not the death knell of a social network (professors ordering students to open an account!), I don't know what is.
Teenagers want and need to find a place of their own, to form their own subculture. A new technology comes along, they jump on board because they are highly adaptable, their parents less, often much less, so. But after five years the teenagers are getting out of their teens and those entering the teens once again need to find their own space. Therefore, there can be no permanent place for teens unless it puts off older people joining or staying. Anyway, someone needs to beta test the new communications paradigms.
Bitter and proud of it.
Like many slashdot users, for most of my life, I've been accused of spending too much time on computers.
As a child of the 80s, I've spent countless hours on BBSes, terminal internet, dialup internet, AOL instant messenger, battle.net, mmos, civilization 1, civilization 2, civilization 3, etc. ;-)
Today, however, I feel like a luddite. I don't use Facebook. I don't use instagram or snapchat or whatsapp. I read one or two twitter accounts, but don't have an account myself. My wife is totally hooked on Facebook, and I'm now I'm the one complaining about spending so much time on the computer!
It's a bizarre world.