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

Re:I doubt it

[Anubis IV]

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.

That's like saying that they took back the key to their house that they given to their abusive ex-spouse, but they still let the ex-spouse in every night to have a "chat", which consists of the ex-spouse relaying every banal and horrible thing they heard in the last day while being repeatedly told to stop installing cameras and turning over any object that isn't nailed down.

iMessage

[rsilvergun]

at least that's how it is with my kid. iMessage functions as a defacto social network. It's the killer app that keeps her stuck on the iPhone.

Re:I doubt it

[shaitand]

Nah, the younger users have deleted FB to move to instagram and whatsapp ignoring the fact that is still using facebook.