America's Teens Are Choosing YouTube Over Facebook (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Three years ago, Facebook was the dominant social media site among U.S. teens, visited by 71 percent of people in that magic, trendsetting demographic. Not anymore. Now only 51 percent of kids ages 13-17 use Facebook, according to Pew Research Center. The world's largest social network has finally been eclipsed in popularity by YouTube, Snapchat and Facebook Inc.-owned Instagram. Alphabet Inc.'s YouTube is the most popular, used by 85 percent of teens, according to Pew.

Instagram is slightly more popular than Snapchat overall, Pew said, with 72 percent of respondents saying they use the photo-sharing app, compared with Snapchat's 69 percent. But Snap Inc. is holding its own, despite Instagram's frequent parroting of its features. About one-third of the survey's respondents said they visit Snapchat and YouTube most often, while 15 percent said Instagram is their most frequent destination. Meanwhile, only 10 percent of teens said Facebook is their most-used online platform. The Pew analysis was based on a survey of 1,058 parents who have a teenager from 13 to 17, as well as interviews with 743 teens themselves. The survey also found that 99% of teens own a smartphone or have access to one, and 45% said they're online "on a near-constant basis."

Comments

Social media

[AHuxley]

Its what old people use to sell stuff to you.

Re:Social media

[bhagwad]

Search for something on Twitter. 99% of it is marketing crap - filled with a dozen hashtags, and probably auto-generated. Real posts by real people are rare - and they're the only ones worth engaging with. Pity there's no way I can filter my stream/results to only get such tweets :(

So, we've created a monster

[Bruce Perens]

Back when we were looking fondly toward the future where normal people would be on the Internet, we didn't really think of participants so tremendous that more than a 10th of traffic might go their way. Just as there wasn't only one telephone number that everyone called. But that's what we got. We thought the internet would be a tool for democracy. We we ever f**king wrong.

Over time, it might turn out that the market flattens out or that distributed social networking really does catch on. I hope. Just reading about the internet as the fiefdom of a dozen companies makes me ill.

Re: So, we've created a monster

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost 25 years since Eternal September. Hard to believe it.

Re:So, we've created a monster

[Anonymous Coward]

Because everyone was supposed to host their own websites. ISPs shut that down quickly, it can be extremely difficult or near impossible to get ports unblocked so you can host your own services. Every consumer-level internet service agreement I've read says no servers allowed. Distributed services won't catch on until that goes away. And managing your personal website is still too complex. In fact, it was easier in web 1.0 days when you used FrontPage or another WYSIWYS document editor to create pages. They were far easier than managing blog posts or database permissions.

The internet is still a tool for democracy, you just assumed only smart people who cared would use it. You need to educate people before giving them tools or they'll find ways to use them you didn't expect.

Re:So, we've created a monster

[rmdingler]

Consolidation of a lucrative emerging market is the way it's done, with internet companies being no exception, and the big fish generally eat the smaller fish... IBM letting go of intellectual property to Microsoft, Blockbuster not purchasing Netflix, etc., the exceptions rather than the rule.

The top companies in the world are internet-based, and they are all great gobblers of even borderline promising companies.

Re:So, we've created a monster

[rtb61]

People invariably believe what they want to believe and they will believe all kinds of shit well beyond the propaganda they are served. Propaganda only works in a vacuum, they need to silence all voices except the handful they approve and that is impossible on the internet.

If you were looking for an intelligent response and blossoming of awareness, perhaps you need to sit back and accept the reality that an IQ of 100 is the average so half the people are dumber than that and 100 ain't all that bright, 110 is not really significant and 115 is getting closer to where real understanding exists. The majority of people are empty consumers of content apart from empty meaningless speech, that is the way it is, and that is the way the majority of the internet will appear.

However it is not a vacuum of understanding because more intellectual people now share communications and look to change the way the ill informed think. It is much more accessible to the intellectually minded and they way, way outnumber the shallower thinking con artists. The general public still require educators and they will require them for the whole of their lives, if you want them to do, it is your job to educate, just the way it is.

Democracy is thriving on the internet, ignore the marketing and especially ignore the fads, you are trying to decide future political outcomes upon the way hula hoops move. The masses, you only pay attention to what they are learning and you seek ways to change that to produce better outcomes.

Besides teens always rebel, I just wander how they will rebel against social media, probably take it out on the companies involved.

Re:So, we've created a monster

[Narcocide]

I saw it coming, Bruce. It didn't help me do anything about it, but I saw this coming. And even as I railed against colleagues, peers, and family who all got their hands dirty participating in it one way or another, everyone called me paranoid and crazy. But if I had the pulpit that you do, maybe I could have at least saved a few of them.

Instead, the result is they just trust me even less because they can't fathom how I could have known.

Re:So, we've created a monster

[ZorinLynx]

> it can be extremely difficult or near impossible to get ports unblocked so you can host your own services.

Not anymore, really. ISPs don't give a flying flock of sparrows if you run a web server on your connection. All the big ISPs don't block port 80 or 443.

The bigger problem these days is dealing with changing IP addresses, and the fact that a single web server running on a home connection can't scale up if something on it becomes even slightly popular.

Re:So, we've created a monster

[Austerity Empowers]

Plus the question of whether you really want to open a port on your firewall to run your website which you will inevitably want to use any of a number of software packages of very dubious quality, but high user friendliness, and thus expose your entire home network, dick pics, toaster, bank records etc. to some rando hacker on the interwebs? Do you want to pay all that extra money for an SSL cert from someone? Couple that with highly asymmetric bandwidth, and the answer becomes no.

Your website you pay for someone to host, if it gets hacked and it was important, hopefully you have backups. If it wasn't important, well it's probably gone forever.

Still, I don't think I'd go back to 1991, AOL and dial-up. The internet changed the world, we just can't have the nice things we thought we could have had.

Re: So, we've created a monster

[Anonymous Coward]

The same PEW Research that claimed over a million dead people were registered to vote? Fake TV news called it an "unproven allegation" when President Trump quoted them, as I recall. Why is PEW Research believable now?

Re:So, we've created a monster

[omnichad]

SSL certs protect your visitors, not you. And you can get free SSL certs from Let's Encrypt that are trusted by every major browser.

Re:So, we've created a monster

[Austerity Empowers]

I am aware of that about SSL, but if you are going to offer any sort of interaction with the user that requires a sign in, I feel you are obligated to use SSL, even if you're not holding sensitive information. People continue to use the same damn credentials everywhere, expect security and get really upset if their bad habits lead to unfortunate results.

I did not know about Let's Encrypt, the last time I pursued this they did not exist.

Still, for most people, even technically savvy people, I would advocate using a hosting service outside of your home.

Re: So, we've created a monster

[ncc74656]

Almost 25 years since Eternal September. Hard to believe it.

salfter@ultravps ~ $ ./september.pl
Thu Sep 9039 22:46:09 PDT 1993
salfter@ultravps ~ $

Re:So, we've created a monster

[Anonymous Coward]

I use gandi for my domain name and they have an API with which you can automatically change the IP address pointed to by your site if your IP address changes, and there's free software on gihub to do it.

Re:So, we've created a monster

[AmiMoJo]

Web hosting is so cheap now, and Cloudflare offers free caching services that will prevent you getting Slashdotted or DDOSed.

Turns out web hosting is too hard for most people though, they prefer stuff like Wordpress and Instagram that makes it easy to just post stuff. It's the age old trade off of autonomy and freedom vs. convenience and getting the bar low enough for people to participate.

Re: So, we've created a monster

[dnaumov]

"We thought the internet would be a tool for democracy. We we ever f**king wrong."

It is a tool for democracy. People voted. You just happen to dislike the result.

Re: So, we've created a monster

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem is NAT. Your server cant be reached without port forwarding, and the NAT may bot even be yours to set up.

Try running a server on a smartphone, see what I mean. Every multi-user game for phones connects to a servet somewhere. The idea of three friends playing some game WITHOUT a server some where, is alien to developers. But nice because no corporate help is needed after getting the game. Unfortunately, hard to pull off due to phones being NATed by carriers.

Re:So, we've created a monster

[houghi]

It was forshadowed: "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Thomas J. Watson. Chairman and CEO of IBM in 1943.

Look at the computer and phones of today as terminals and "the cloud" as computers, the quote sounds more and more true.

Re:So, we've created a monster

[AlwinBarni]

The bigger problem these days is dealing with changing IP addresses, and the fact that a single web server running on a home connection can't scale up if something on it becomes even slightly popular.

There are dynamic DNS services, home routers even have a specific option for that to automatically register changing IPs (at least it was so last time I checked).

Re:So, we've created a monster

[cayenne8]

Because everyone was supposed to host their own websites. ISPs shut that down quickly, it can be extremely difficult or near impossible to get ports unblocked so you can host your own services.

Then just get a business ISP account.

They really aren't more expensive than a consumer one that I've found.

Granted,mine is grandfathered in, but with Cox cable....about $70/mo...I get a decent level SLA (they do act quick too), and no ports blocked at all, and static IP address.

The up/down speeds are just fine for my needs....

If you want to run your own servers from home, then look into getting a business connection.

Re:So, we've created a monster

[Ol Olsoc]

Instead, the result is they just trust me even less because they can't fathom how I could have known.

Ah, the fate of the Cassandra. I too know that. You just have to sit back, smile, and eat the popcorn while they self destruct.

My learning moment was during the days of subprime loans, when real estate's value extended to infinity, and no loan was too sketchy. An 80 year old with a 50 year mortgage was fine business. While it was simple math, and I knew the end result the first time I saw the ads on Yahoo for people buying. million dollar houses with ridiculous low payments. I saw friends selling their houses t buy huge McMansions in exclusive neighborhoods, only to go bankrupt when the ARM made their monthly payment bigger than their take home pay. But the grifters originating their loans were paid by the number of mortgages they started, not the viability of them.

My house was paid off around the time they were losing theirs.

I think only one ever made note that I was correct, the rest just found it more convenient to be pissed off and jealous of me.

That's just one example. So many people just can't figure out to avoid self destructive behavior.

So now, I'll try once to show the details of self ruinous behavior, but if it doesn't take, I just sit back and enjoy the popcorn - I prefer cheese popcorn with tequila shots and bitter lemon soda chasers. The Cassandra isn't precluded from a bit of enjoyment.

And none of that sissy Patron stuff either. Tequila should fight you all the way down.

Re: So, we've created a monster

[Anonymous Coward]

My home IP hasn't changed in 5 years

Re:So, we've created a monster

[Anonymous Coward]

FIOS blocks all the major ports.

Re: So, we've created a monster

[shm]

Let's Encrypt certs expire fairly quickly. 90 days last time I checked.

Re: So, we've created a monster

[omnichad]

And that's a good thing from a security standpoint. Renewals can be fully automated too.

Re: So, we've created a monster

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the question that needs to be asked is how long those people have been dead. I know previously the State I live in would remove people who haven't voted in 4 years

Re: So, we've created a monster

[dgatwood]

Actually, it's a bad thing from a security standpoint, IMO. Among other things:

• You have an extra bot, typically running as root, to update the cert and restart the server.
• Your server has mandatory downtime at least every three months while the cert is refreshed.
• It generates a new key every 90 days, so users can't do key pinning unless you write custom server-side scripts that manually run certbot and manually install the resulting certs.
• Validation occurs by sticking a file in a well-known location on the server, rather than through the whois record, which IMO potentially makes it easier for attackers to create certificates without the site owner knowing about it.

The claim that this improves security by ensuring only a 90-day window in which an incorrectly issued certificate is valid would only be true if it were likely that certificates will get issued incorrectly, and if that is the case, the 90-day validity window is the least of your problems.

As designed, the validation architecture coupled with the lack of a consistent private key significantly increases the MITM risk by making it possible for third parties who manage to get write access to your web tree to generate certs that are indistinguishable from real ones, without you getting an email about it, without them even having access to the (hopefully better-protected) directory that contains your server's private key. That weakness completely erases any benefit from the shorter validity period, and then some.

Besides, the validity period only matters if you're offline and can't check the CRL, or if your DNS is so compromised that you can't check the CRL. And that is likely to be a much more temporary problem than 90 days. And that can be prevented entirely with proper use of key pinning, were it not for that flaw in the way LE ships out of the box.

In short, the whole scheme seems to stem from the bizarre notion that servers are all hopelessly insecure, and that the best you can do is ensure that when they get inevitably compromised, the stolen cert will only be valid for 90 days after the compromise is discovered, whereas in reality, a site like LE is a prime target for attackers, and unless you're a major site, attackers are far more likely to find a way to trick LE into issuing fake certs than to crack into your specific site and steal your private key. So on the whole, security is reduced by this design.

And even if you fix LE where it allows key pinning, the shorter expiration is, at best, a no-op in all but the most unlikely government-actor attacks on a specific user of your site, and even in that best case, is still such a negligible improvement that it isn't worth the risk of having an extra moving part on the server that can break and cripple your site.

Re: So, we've created a monster

[omnichad]

significantly increases the MITM risk by making it possible for third parties who manage to get write access to your web tree to generate certs that are indistinguishable from real ones

No time to go point by point, but this one is just silly. If someone gains write access to your server, MITM is not even relevant anymore.

Re: So, we've created a monster

[dgatwood]

Not true. There are lots of potential misconfigurations that could allow you to add a file where none exists, or make a request for a specific URL provide contents without actually having a file there, but that would not allow overwriting existing files because of permissions, e.g. by overriding some error handler.

Also, if someone gains temporary write access through a known security hole that you later fix (e.g. by upgrading some large, monolithic app like WordPress or VBulletin), the attacker gains the ability to MITM you for 90 days after you fix the problem, unless you just happen to notice that the hole has been exploited. That would not be possible with key pinning, because they would not be able to gain access to the private key through a web app. But they might be able to spoof a response for an arbitrary URL.

Re:So, we've created a monster

[epine]

Yesterday, I was randomly indulging in one of the things we did expect:

Rethinking Civilization — Crash Course World History 201

Quirky, not to everyone's taste (yay!), and damn interesting compared to the same 15 minutes invested in 99% of what my own childhood offered up.

This episode takes as its starting point a historical perspective from contrarian historian Willem van Schendel: that the mountain people weren't listless barbarians, but conscientious refugees of valley civilization (primarily organized around taxation, conscription, and surplus production—especially in the insanely fertile Nile valley, still the defining crowd-sourced achievement of civilization's pre-pubescent growth spurt).

This Crash Course episode's thesis concerns a region of Southeast Asia known as Zomia. The central region encompasses the highlands of north Indochina, Thailand, northern Myanmar; and the mountains of Southwest China. The expanded region extends as far west as Tibet, Northeast India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Books are heavy. Even a level-headed ox will give you the evil eye humping the library of Alexandria from one stop to another along the Alexandria roadie tour.

A level-headed mountain goat is hard to find (even if you head into town and consult Critonslist). No books for you. So we really don't know much about the Zomians from their own point of view.

Merely contemplating the Nile valley as a squabbling fiefdom of a dozen city states makes me ill.

It's an old, old Zomian sentiment. (I can't prove that for a fact, but I know it's true.)

———

Sturgeon's first corollary: 90% of everything flows towards convenience.

Quelle surprise, it's happened again.

The problem with convenience is that it's barely compatible with principle at the best of times, and actively malign on any average day, in a slow, lazy way—the kind of slow, lazy way that ultimately carves out entire river deltas.

———

My trusty phrenologist has told me I should write a book someday, if merely to relieve the pressure.

Michael W. Lucas: Frequently Asked Questions

You: What tools do you use to write?
Me: Microsoft Word. To format print books for self-publishing, I use InDesign. I format ebooks with Jutoh (nonfiction) and Vellum (fiction). My main desktop runs whatever I'm writing about, FreeBSD at the moment. I have a Windows laptop for InDesign and Microsoft Office.

You: "Microsoft Office? InDesign?" Really?
Me:? Yep. Many publishers, publishing tools, and self-pub platforms expect bug-for-bug compatibility with Microsoft Word. While LibreOffice is good enough for novels, using a product other than Word for complex documents gives iffy results.
...
Bug-for-bug compatibility with MS Word and InDesign are essential. I wish it wasn't. But the business reality is, LibreOffice gets me reader complaints. Word doesn't. LaTeX gives me interoperability problems. InDesign doesn't.

You: But LibreOffice/LaTeX/other free solution!
Me: Look, I've been doing this for over twenty years. I know this business and the technology. Do you think I like being stuck in Microsoft–Adobe Hell?

(Sorry, Michael, the counter-force runs strong in this one: I actually changed your hyphen in Microsoft-Adobe to an ndash—here on stone-age Slashdot—as any TeXie would.)

So now I need to get back to my trusty phrenologist ASAP to question his advice that "writing a book" would "relieve the pressure" if it directly lands me inside the inner circle of Microsoft–Adobe.

So now we have a second reason why history is rarely recorded by the Zomians.

The reason this works f

Re: So, we've created a monster

[Anonymous Coward]

if you are insterested, I have a place to tent. prime location. 2 bedrooms, 2 bath. only $1000 a month.

then on the third month I will put locks on the bathrooms for no reason at my own cost. at which point you will be able to pay business rent for only $2000 a month were you have access to one of the bathrooms for 3h a day.

moron.

That age group shouldn't be using social media

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't let my kids use social media. They're not mature enough to understand what's too much sharing, privacy and the consequences of what you post being forever. It's one thing to watch videos on YouTube and another for revealing everything about themselves to the world to forever see.

Re:That age group shouldn't be using social media

[youngone]

I have had to explain to my wife (not a teenager) about what is appropriate for Facebook.
She seems to have trouble with the concept of "posting" vs "sending". She still assumes that if she sees something on Facebook from one of her friends they have "sent" it to her.
I am going to assume that this is not uncommon.

Re:That age group shouldn't be using social media

[rmdingler]

"Don't worry, youngone, only one more birthday and she's got this."

Re: That age group shouldn't be using social media

[Anonymous Coward]

they're just looking stuff

Re:That age group shouldn't be using social media

[Anonymous Coward]

not uncommon at all, its the reason i never got into it, made a fake account, could not understand quickly how it worked to the point i knew exactly what i was sharing or in general doing on it, so ive never used it since

Re:That age group shouldn't be using social media

[Anonymous Coward]

If her friends only have a few followers, then maybe they're actually thinking of her when they post stuff.
But someone with a million followers will never even see more than a few percent of their followers usernames.
It might help to ask your wife if she thinks [insert celebrity] is "sending" her stuff, or if they're just throwing stuff at the wall.

Re:That age group shouldn't be using social media

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep - parents are informed now that Facebook is not good for their kids and let them watch videos of British guys playing Minecraft and Fortnite instead.

Re:That age group shouldn't be using social media

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did you marry a moron?

Obviously "Pew Research Center" is gonna say that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't he a YouTuber? Pew-Die-Pie something?

Hard to beat cat videos

[jfdavis668]

Socialize with other people is nothing compared to watching cat videos.

Re:Hard to beat cat videos

[DigiShaman]

Nope. VLOGGING brings narcissism to a whole new level! Because Facebook just wasn't enough.

Re: Hard to beat cat videos

[Anonymous Coward]

spoiled kids.
They need the internet we grew up with,
8-bit computers on a 1200 baud modem tone dialing the local BBS group message boards.

Re:Hard to beat cat videos

[tlhIngan]

Nope. VLOGGING brings narcissism to a whole new level! Because Facebook just wasn't enough.

Ding ding ding ding! We have a winner!

YouTube is being used as a video diary. The fact that it does monetization is often the cherry on top. Facebook? They don't pay you jack squat But make a mindless YouTube video about crap and you can rake in real money.

Do it particularly well and you might not even need a job because YouTube can pay you better than any job you'd ever get.

Face it, teenage angst is one thing. Getting teenage angst to pay you some money? Well damn. And yes, YouTube is filled with tons of that dreck.

Re: Hard to beat cat videos

[Anonymous Coward]

1200 baud??? I use a 300 baud acoustical coupler, you insensitive clod.

Re: Hard to beat cat videos

[spudnic]

I ran a BBS on a 300 baud modem!

A survey of parents?

[mark_reh]

Back before I became an engineer years ago, I used to read the engineering magazines annual salary surveys. It always looked awesome. Then I looked at who they surveyed- engineering managers, who had incentive to make it sound like engineering pay was much higher than it actually was.

Who in their right mind would survey parents about what their teen-age kids are doing?

If you're going to survey people about something, you have to survey the people you want to know about. Not their parents.

Duh!

Re:A survey of parents?

[Austerity Empowers]

So you're saying the tide pod challenge wasn't a pandemic?

Re: A survey of parents?

[Anonymous Coward]

i know more of glue sniffers and methanol poisonings prior to youtube than tide podders

Re:A survey of parents?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Engineering was a fucking mistake. I could have been top of the stack at just about anything else (not competing with so many smart people or for so few management positions). The company is 30% engineers and 1% engineering management. It's also 3% HR and 1% HR management. Which do YOU think would be a more lucrative career?

Re:A survey of parents?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you survey teens, you'll find that lots of them have girlfriends (they're in Canada though, so you can't meet them). Also, they have sex all the time, and drink, and go to cool parties.

Different people, different biases

Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

This certainty explains the quality of the comment section on YouTube.

What's not being said

[davesays]

I think the bigger issue is that while Facebook at least pretends to be bi-directional communication (while gathering and selling); YouTube is just watchers, like TV. There is a huge difference between even perceived interaction and just uptake. This large-scale de-socialization of younger people is one of the major factors in the mental health problems of the youth of today.

Re:What's not being said

[Austerity Empowers]

Youtube ISN'T just watchers. Parent's of kids everywhere are being told their kids want to stream on youtube. Most of them will never have more than a few viewers, it's the ones that get popular suddenly that make you nervous. If only youtube was just watchers, it wouldn't make me so nervous.

Re:What's not being said

[Anonymous Coward]

I told my kids they couldn't VBLOG and explained why.

Some parents just want to be cool so bad, they hurt their own children to be cool.

We chose Open source over Free Software

[Anonymous Coward]

">How do you respond to the argument that all of your support is just to line your own pockets through your refusal to release your books under the GPL? You have the best unix books, Open Source is unix, it is in your best interests for the whole world to learn unix and hence buy your books.

O'Reilly: Richard thinks there is a moral imperative underlying the free redistribution of software, and now, by extension, other information. Richard feels that since there isn't any physical cost associated with copying software, limiting free redistribution is a form of extortion. I on the other hand feel that it's immoral to try to compel someone else to give you something they've created without compensating them in some way. That is, when software is freed, it is a gift, not the result of an obligation. I found Richard's comments at the Open Source Developer's Day, where he called John Ousterhout a parasite because he now wants to build proprietary tools on top of tcl, a defining moment. This is akin to children feeling that their parents owe them an inheritance, or people on welfare feeling that the government owes them a handout. Richard should be grateful for what John has already given, not castigating him because he doesn't want to give even more. "

----

"SL: How is your work different from that of Richard Stallman?

Raymond: For him, what he calls Free Software is very much a moral crusade. It almost has the character of a religion. Heâ(TM)s passionately involved in all kinds of arguments about the nature and appropriate scope of intellectual property. I care much less about that. To me, Open Source is not particularly a moral or a legal issue. Itâ(TM)s an engineering issue. I advocate Open Source, because very pragmatically, I think it leads to better engineering results and better economic results. I want programmers to be able to do good work within the system, instead of being constantly frustrated. I want consumers to get software thatâ(TM)s reliable and stable, and feature-full and transparent for their inspection. Thatâ(TM)s a goal of a somewhat different order than Richardâ(TM)s. And yes, we argue about it sometimesâ¦"

----

We made our bed. Turns out Open Source *ISNT* an inherently better way to make software, it just normalized the expectation that corporations can take from communities and only give back on their own terms, which never favor US.

Mindless Chatter, Ja?

[resistant]

At the risk of arousing any short-tempered teenager present at Slashdot into a brief, indignant rage followed by a momentary fit of existential angst followed by a sudden burst of inane remarks about the latest fusion garage band to explode onto YouTube this week, the youngsters have always wanted to natter and chatter about nothing that matters. I'll offer the pop-psychology explanation that taking and posting short videos to YouTube has become so quick and painless in an age of powerful cellphones with excellent video resolution that it beats struggling with the "felt" complexity of Facebook.

Mary sees a bee-YOO-tiful horsie galloping around a local farm pasture and snaps a quick video with lots of giggling and wavey "hi theres" to her besties. Off it goes to YouTube, and texts fly with the video URL. Why not?

Dan snaps a nice video of his totally rad dragster with selfie views of him grinning and punching out the "V" for victory sign from the driver's seat. Off it goes to YouTube, and texts fly with the video URL and "see-CRET" information about the next impromptu venue for screeching rubber and distant, wailing sirens. Why not?

It's rich media, and it's easy. Plus, YouTube is more happening than the Facebook with the disapproving grannies and the old farts who want to sell stuff. It's all in good fun! At least, I hope so. If it's an alien plot by the Betelgeusians to somehow subvert the next generation, then I'd prefer to be left alone with my little social illusions and my quaint notions about the general application of Ockham's Razor. And my vodka.

Re: Mindless Chatter, Ja?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop posting.

Social Media

[phantomfive]

Putting "Youtube" in the social media category makes me think the people who wrote this article have never used a computer.

I have diarrhea

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to use it to make ice cream!

So what?

[bondsbw]

My two toddlers also use Youtube more than Facebook.

People aren't "choosing" one of these over the other. Youtube isn't supplanting Facebook. The factors that make people choose which social network they use and which streaming video service they use are very different.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

My two toddlers also use Youtube more than Facebook.

There's something wrong with this statement....

Re: So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but my 12 year old wouldn't touch Facebook even if his pocket money depended on it. Its the online equivalent of a day out visiting an old folk's home

Surveying 42 million Teens? Talk to ~1000 parents!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an incredibly small set of the wrong people to be asking.

uhh..

[SuperDre]

You cannot compare youtube to facebook, they're 2 completely different things. Because of that I have no confidence in the people who did the research..

Youtub as a job

[DrYak]

The fact that it does monetization is often the cherry on top. Facebook? They don't pay you jack squat But make a mindless YouTube video about crap and you can rake in real money.
Do it particularly well and you might not even need a job because YouTube can pay you better than any job you'd ever get

Until 1 year later (exactly when you've got credit to reimburse and need stable income) when Google decides to update the Youtube algorithm and suddenly you're not getting as many view / getting as much monetization.
(Those vloggers have vaguely heard once some weird saying about "eggs" and "baskets", but didn't really pay attention to what was meant).

Or some big drama controversy or whatever-gate emerges yet again, causing anything between advertiser pulling out, trolls trying to report videos just to demonetize them, all the way to Youtube banning a user due to the wrong controversial word having been uttered in some video.

Yeah, youtube could help some teen grab some quick cash if they got lucky, but replacing a job with "Youtube" as a regular income requires a tiny bit more strategy and planning.

Re:Youtub as a job

[DigiShaman]

The doors closed on Youtube stardom. No way Linus Sebastian or Eric Cook (Eric the Car Guy) could have maintained their momentum had they started on Youtube today. The fact that Youtube has gutted the ability to monetize will only keep the newcomers out from sticking around long enough to make professional content. Yet, Youtube has a different idea; they want to be the next Netflix and shove all the losers off. Got news for them, the exact-ass-opposite is occurring!!

Kids move from trendy to trendy

[p51d007]

AOL, friendster, myspace etc... Kids move quickly from "trendy" thing to trendy thing. Plus, the biggest issue with Facebook, is the amount of garbage thrown out on facebook. If you don't use a blocker (I use uBlock), and create blocking scripts, it will bomb you with crap. The right side of the screen typically is a mess of crap I don't want to read or see, so I just block it. Advertising, spam from companies...teens I guess don't want to see it. But, where the teens go, so will the advertisers. Once they find where the teens are "hanging out", you can bet the advertisers WILL follow.

Re:Kids move from trendy to trendy

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest problem with Facebook for kids is their parents are on it as well.

those tech savvy teens again!

[cascadingstylesheet]

Yep, those tech savvy teens are way smarter than us oldsters!

"Take that, you privacy-invading Facebook! We're going with Google!"

On the talking of bollocks.

[mjwx]

At the risk of arousing any short-tempered teenager present at Slashdot into a brief, indignant rage followed by a momentary fit of existential angst followed by a sudden burst of inane remarks about the latest fusion garage band to explode onto YouTube this week, the youngsters have always wanted to natter and chatter about nothing that matters.

Yes, kids have always liked to talk bollocks... This isn't a revelation and it's not restricted to youngsters either, a bunch of 20 something blokes at the pub results in inane chatter (called "banter" in En_GB), middle aged mothers doing yoga is more about sharing celeb gossip than contortion, octogenarians sitting around talking about how much better it was back in their day and how kids have it so much better now, in fact, they have this conversation several times a day.

Talking bollocks is almost universal, every social group, gender, age, ethnicity, hair colour, so on and so forth does it. Given the rest of your post you are a prime candidate for the prestigious Bollocks Talker of the Year award, I dont think you could have sounded more like "old man yelling at cloud" if you tried.

Re:On the talking of bollocks.

[DutchUncle]

Terry Pratchett said something about most of human speech essentially meaning "Hello, I'm alive, and so are you."

Facebook is the new AOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Only housefraus and grandmas use FB anymore. Everyone else has moved to YouTube, Instragram, or Reddit.

Re:Facebook is the new AOL

[OrangeTide]

Sure, but I can maintain membership on multiple sites. It's not really an either-or problem. I guess I'm on YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Github, Slashdot, ...

Consumers

[TJHook3r]

A useful number for me would have been numbers of YouTube users who create content (actual content) versus the dumb consumers. At least Facebook required some interaction!

Uncensored

[RogueWarrior65]

Because the chat area is uncensored. I was watching one of those live streaming train channels and happened to glance over at the chat stream. Holy cow! There is some of the most racist, vile people on there. I guess people love the thrill of relative anonymity and the fact that nobody is going to physically kick their ass.