More Than 1 In 4 American Users Have Deleted Facebook, Pew Survey Finds (washingtonpost.com)

Gayle BAS writes: Nearly three-quarters of American Facebook users have changed how they use the social media app in the past year, following a barrage of scandals involving the abuse of personal data, foreign interference in U.S. elections and the spread of hateful or harassing content on the platform, Pew Research has found. According to the survey, over half of Facebook users ages 18 and older (54%) say they have adjusted their privacy settings in the past 12 months. Around four-in-ten (42%) say they have taken a break from checking the platform for a period of several weeks or more, while around a quarter (26%) say they have deleted the Facebook app from their cellphone. All told, some 74% of Facebook users say they have taken at least one of these three actions in the past year. The survey findings include: There are, however, age differences in the share of Facebook users who have recently taken some of these actions. Most notably, 44% of younger users (those ages 18 to 29) say they have deleted the Facebook app from their phone in the past year, nearly four times the share of users ages 65 and older (12%) who have done so. Similarly, older users are much less likely to say they have adjusted their Facebook privacy settings in the past 12 months: Only a third of Facebook users 65 and older have done this, compared with 64% of younger users. In earlier research, Pew Research Center has found that a larger share of younger than older adults use Facebook. Still, similar shares of older and younger users have taken a break from Facebook for a period of several weeks or more.

Comments

They back that up every night

[Anonymous Coward]

rm -r facebook.com/*

Dammit.

rm -rf facebook.com/*

Dammit!

killall facebook.com; rm -rf facebook.com/*

Dammit!!!

Common excuses

[Anonymous Coward]

1. I only do heroin on weekends.

2. He won't hit me again, it was my fault anyway.

3. Now look what you made me do.

4. I'll leave facebook next week.

I deleted Facebook

[TheDarkener]

But I'm in Soviet Russia and now I'm deleted.

Please send for help. It's cold down here.

Re:I doubt it

[Comboman]

The summary makes it clear that they merely deleted the Facebook app, which is a far cry from deleting their Facebook account, which means they're still using the web interface.

I doubt the average Facebook user knows the difference. Like people who refer to their browser as The Internet (as in "Your mother's deleted the goddamn internet again!"). As for the web interface, if it's not in their face every time they look at the phone, pumping out notifications, they're not going to use it much (assuming they even know how).