Facebook Lost Around 2.8 Million US Users Under 25 Last Year (recode.net)

According to new estimates by eMarketer, Facebook users in the 12- to 17-year-old demographic declined by 9.9 percent in 2017, or about 1.4 million total users. That's almost three times more than the digital measurement firm expected. There were roughly 12.1 million U.S. Facebook users in the 12- to 17-year-old demographic by the end of the year. Recode reports: There are likely multiple reasons for the decline. Facebook has been losing its "cool" factor for years, and young people have more options than ever for staying in touch with friends and family. Facebook also serves as a digital record keeper -- but many young people don't seem to care about saving their life online, at least not publicly. That explains why Snapchat and Instagram, which offer features for sharing photos and videos that disappear, are growing in popularity among this demographic. Overall, eMarketer found Facebook lost about 2.8 million U.S. users under 25 last year. The research firm released Facebook usage estimates for 2018 on Monday, and expects that Facebook will lose about 2.1 million users in the U.S. under the age of 25 this year.

Comments

This surprises you how?

[Charcharodon]

Right off the bat I wont let the teen (14 girl) have a Facebook account. Lot's of the other parents I know feel the same way. She can text her friends, but has no access to social media of any type. Too many issues to put up with that nonsense.

Myself I'm half ready to bail. Nothing in the feed worth reading anymore. All it took was a few un-follows of friends and a half dozen "this is porn" feedback of suggested news and stories of things that popped up in the feed and it hasn't been updated with much of anything in a while.

Other than a little messaging with friends and a few pictures for the Grandparents I have little to do with Facebook anymore.

Re:This surprises you how?

[Anonymous Coward]

She can text her friends, but has no access to social media of any type.

Haha. Look at this clueless parent.

Re:This surprises you how?

[gatkinso]

Well, my kids of the same age are allowed to have a FB account - but they don't want it.

None of their friends are on FB.

It is for old people.

Facebook sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

How much of this is because Facebook decided that they don't care about helping people socialize any more, and that they're all about the advertiser eyeballs?

Friend someone on Facebook and you'll ... possibly occasionally see things they post, maybe. Sometimes even when they post it!

I "follow" the local National Weather Service on Facebook. (I think they call it following for pages, I can't remember, maybe that's Twitter.) They post things like weather forecasts and hazardous weather alerts. Facebook only ever shows them to me several days after they're relevant.

There's absolutely no way to find out what Facebook is hiding from you and no way to tell it not to filter things out. Is it any wonder kids don't see the appeal? Who wants to sign up for a service so that they can maybe see a few posts from their parents a couple of days after they posted them?

Re:Waiting for Next Big Thing.

[AHuxley]

Re "Someone should clone"
+1 for that.

Go back further to an IM GUI, with chat rooms, video, voice, file transfer. Add in a calendar and some group collaboration.
The internet needs effortless communications, fun, ability to enjoy chat, sharing, working together.
No US party political censorship, SJW enforcing their brand of politics, per nation, per link, per comment censorship.
The internet wants its freedom of speech back from the censorship of the US party political SJW.
Once users cant send a link, comment on a link, share a link, write a movie review, read a movie review, can only select for SJW approved news links...
Thats people ready for some freedom of speech and freedom after speech.