US Users Are Leaving Facebook by the Millions, Research Says (marketplace.org)

An anonymous reader shares a report: All the bad press about Facebook might be catching up to the company. New numbers from Edison Research show an an estimated 15 million fewer users in the United States compared to 2017. The biggest drop is in the very desirable 12- to 34-year-old group. Marketplace Tech got a first look at Edison's latest social media research. It revealed almost 80 percent of people in the U.S. are posting, tweeting or snapping, but fewer are going to Facebook.

Comments

Nuke it from orbit.

[Virtucon]

It's the only way to be sure.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter.. All of it.

Re:Nuke it from orbit.

[ZoomieDood]

Works for me... it's how "Person of Interest" ended...

Oh, wait..

it was nuked in orbit after trying to escape being exterminated on the ground.

(Person of Interest was a GREAT series, btw!)

Re:Nuke it from orbit.

[antdude]

Just nuke the Internet and be done. So hasta la vista baby, /. users. :P

Re:Nuke it from orbit.

[DigressivePoser]

I'd prefer the Shock-and-awe budget option. Dumb bombs with JDAM kits. Guide one right into Zucks corner office window. Watch it live, on Facebook!

Obligatory Hipster Comment

[Anonymous Coward]

People still use Facebook?

Re:Obligatory Hipster Comment

[Oswald McWeany]

People still use Facebook?

I didn't use Facebook before it was cool to not use Facebook.

Re:Obligatory Hipster Comment

[OneHundredAndTen]

People still use Facebook?

Facebook can be very useful - as a garbage container. I use it for writing comments in web sites that require you to register - Facebook makes that straightforward and painless. I am guessing that, by virtue of this fact, those sites send a lot of trash to my Facebook account. I don't really know, as I don't log in to that account. An account that, on the other hand, I created with fake data throughout. By now it probably is nothing but an ever-growing cesspool. Facebook can deal with it.

Re:Obligatory Hipster Comment

[CaptainDork]

I deleted Facebook Feb 7 this year. I'm 73 and a retired IT guy.

I was never cool.

Until now. I got 17 cool points.

Re:Obligatory Hipster Comment

[sheramil]

Delete it again. it is STILL THERE.

Re:Obligatory Hipster Comment

[runningduck]

I hope that you realize that Facebook has very likely been able to tie that fake account back to you. They have found ways to synthesize accounts tied to people's real identities for people who have never had Facebook accounts. Connecting you to your fake account would be trivial by comparison.

Re:Obligatory Hipster Comment

[Darinbob]

Only for a couple of years, it doesn't really seem that widely used at this point in time. Google+ is going away but that was much more active and interesting with fewer politics.

Re:Obligatory Hipster Comment

[rtb61]

I deleted it years back what a hassle, you simply can not trust the fuckers. You so called delete it and after you so called delete it, if you log back in, testing to make sure it is deleted, they fucking reactivate it and it is all fucking there, which means it was never deleted. They only way to delete Facebook factually, is to become politically active, campaign to have Facebook shut down for crimes against humanity, specifically gross global of invasion of human privacy.

So I supposedly deleted Facebook something like a decade ago, can I check, no because the fuckers will reactivate the account they never fucking deleted and just filled with data from other sources. So yeah nuke Facebook from orbit, shut the corporation down and lock up ALL of it's senior executives and board members, 10 year should be a reasonable sentence.

Re:Obligatory Hipster Comment

[MerlTurkin]

Mainly attention whores and drama queens and their "fans". SO GLAD I'm not on that clusterF**k of a site.

No, they're not

[DogDude]

They're just moving from one of Facebook's data collecting websites (facebook.com) to a different one (instagram.com). They're still giving Facebook roughly the same amount of data.

Re:No, they're not

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. If you jump from one data-mined centrally controlled service, to another data-mined centrally controlled service, what did you win?

These people do not seem smart enough to step back and evaluate the reasons that Facebook turned out to be a bad idea, and avoid making those same mistakes the next time around. They have just internalized a media message "Facebook is bad" (and it IS bad), without bothering to understand why it is bad.

This is why we cannot have nice things.

Re:No, they're not

[JaredOfEuropa]

And once people actually jump ship to a completely different and new platform, FB will just buy that. With promises to not harvest data or share it with other divisions, and the founders quitting in disgust (and a couple billion richer) when FB breaks that promise.

Re:No, they're not

[L_R_Shaw]

The problem for Facebook is the amount of personal data that is uploaded to Instagram is vastly less valuable.

Instagram accounts are for the most part just a username, some banal tag line, and a bunch of emojis along with the stream of lifestyle photos. Valuable, yes, but nowhere near the comprehensive personal data that Facebook users were uploading to their accounts.

Re:No, they're not

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not even leaving because of the "bad press," which is what TFA is implying. They really don't give a shit about that. The reason they're leaving Facebook is because they've moved on to the new "shiny thing". They don't really care about bad press, or that they're moving from one sector of data-mining to another. They only care what everyone else is connecting with and keeping up with their peers.

Re:No, they're not

[Oswald McWeany]

The problem for Facebook is the amount of personal data that is uploaded to Instagram is vastly less valuable.

Instagram accounts are for the most part just a username, some banal tag line, and a bunch of emojis along with the stream of lifestyle photos. Valuable, yes, but nowhere near the comprehensive personal data that Facebook users were uploading to their accounts.

With improvements to photo recognizing algorithms, those photos could become more valuable than text.

Re:No, they're not

[DogDude]

I don't know about that. They still get all of their location and contact data from their phones (and maybe audio/video?). They can still track them all around the web, since they probably all use their Face/gram logins. I don't know if the data they explicitly put into Facebook ("I like bananas. My favorite color is blue") is more valuable than all of the tracking data they get. And of course, now they can mine those photos, as well, so my bet is that Facebook doesn't care which portal people use, as long as they're using one of them.

Re:No, they're not

[apoc.famine]

Probably like a thousand times more valuable, eh?

Re:No, they're not

[AHuxley]

The ads and NSA still collect it all.

Re:No, they're not

[Skubman]

One man's trash is another soulless corporation's gold mine.

Re:No, they're not

[hoggoth]

So true. My older kid doesn't use Facebook, just Instagram. She says it's because Facebook is where mom and dad are. My younger kid doesn't use Instagram, just Snapshat. He says it's because Instagram is where his sister is.

"Users"

[SuperKendall]

I've seen very few people actually leaving Facebook...

I wonder how many of those leaving are real users, vs. some kind of bot accounts that are not getting the traction they used to?

Re:"Users"

[OffTheLip]

Can the users even truly "leave" Facebook? It's like the Hotel California, 'You can check out any time you like But you can never leave',

Re: "Users"

[Anonymous Coward]

Kendall's admirer, you are so tsundere. It must feel nice to talk politely and gently about your penis instead of screaming "Nazi" all the time. You'll find you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. ;)

Re:"Users"

[Anonymous Coward]

At least the Hotel California is honest about it. Spybook and the gang does everything in their power to conceal their true objectives.

Re:"Users"

[timholman]

I've seen very few people actually leaving Facebook...

There's no need to shut down your account if you simply stop using the platform, which is very much what I am observing. I have unfollowed so many people (because they couldn't resist screeching about politics or religion, or sharing clickbait memes), and blocked so many clickbait sites (e.g. "only 0.1% can answer this correctly", "what dog do you look like", etc.) that my feed is a pale shadow of what it used to be. My real friends (as opposed to FB friends) report the same thing. I simply don't feel a need to check Facebook much anymore. There's nothing interesting going on. If I need to reach out to friends quickly, I message them instead.

I do not doubt that Facebook engagement metrics are dropping in the U.S. Forget the bot accounts. It's the real users leaving who worry them.

Re:"Users"

[Darinbob]

They don't "leave", they just start logging less often until they eventually forget.

Re:"Users"

[Darinbob]

Do people know if you stop being friends on facebook? I added an old school mate and it's non stop politics now, but I don't want to offend him. Similarly for a person who keeps proselytizing.

This seems to break the unwritten purpose of facebook - share life events, pics of weddings, pics of the kids, keep everyone up to date. I already feel vastly constrained about what I can post when I do feel like it, most people won't really care about a new video game that I like. It was so much easier on Google+ where you could shove your friends and acquaintances (and the odd strangers who followed you for no reason) into separate circles. (two main groups on facebook for me: women who post about family, cats, hobbies, vacations, and men who repost stupid memes)

Re:"Users"

[Darinbob]

I'd rather have twenty Kendalls than the idiot who keeps responding repeatedly to every Kendall post... I'd suggest finding a new hobby, such as chia pet breeding.

Re:"Users"

[Darinbob]

It's hard to tell who is using and who isn't. You don't really know if someone is there until you see some posting activity. They could be passively checking the updates, or they could not be logging in at all, and you can't tell which until you open the box with the cat in it.

Re:"Users"

[timholman]

Do people know if you stop being friends on facebook? I added an old school mate and it's non stop politics now, but I don't want to offend him. Similarly for a person who keeps proselytizing.

You don't have to stop being friends. Just unfollow them. I assure you that they'll never know.

What you'll quickly realize is that the people who constantly push politics or religion on Facebook have no desire to actually engage with other people. Facebook is just a convenient soapbox to preach from while they feel superior for their enlightened attitudes.

Re:old people

[bill_mcgonigle]

well played, sir.

Post What Post

[dmurphycan]

I would comment but I don't post anymore...

Leaving Versus Inactive

[L_R_Shaw]

I have 30-40 friends that I check their Facebook accounts occasionally over the past few years but find myself not even bothering anymore.

All but a few have bother posting anything for months and in some cases years. Those few that are still active for the most part do so just with profile picture changes or other minor updates.

I don't know anyone who has bothered to 'leave' as in deleting their accounts. It feels like a ghost town with food still left on the table from months to years ago when the people just left and never came back.

Facebook's stock is going to be one of the greatest shorts in the history of the stock market. It's only a matter of when.

Re:Leaving Versus Inactive

[blahbooboo]

I have 30-40 friends that I check their Facebook accounts occasionally over the past few years but find myself not even bothering anymore.

All but a few have bother posting anything for months and in some cases years. Those few that are still active for the most part do so just with profile picture changes or other minor updates.

I don't know anyone who has bothered to 'leave' as in deleting their accounts. It feels like a ghost town with food still left on the table from months to years ago when the people just left and never came back.

Facebook's stock is going to be one of the greatest shorts in the history of the stock market. It's only a matter of when.

Exactly what I've seen as well. People just aren't sharing and when they do it's hidden in endless sponsored posts.

What was great about facebook a decade ago was it really was just your friends sharing stories. Now it's a newsfeed full of crap you dont care about. Additionally, people just added everyone on the planet as "friends", when they really were just people you met once or twice. Once you get to hundreds and thousands of "friends" your feed is going to be full of crap you dont care about once again...

Re:Leaving Versus Inactive

[weeboo0104]

Exactly what I've seen as well. People just aren't sharing and when they do it's hidden in endless sponsored posts.

What was great about facebook a decade ago was it really was just your friends sharing stories. Now it's a newsfeed full of crap you dont care about.

THIS! I've reported several "Sponsored" posts that were obviously clickbait or outright scams. Not a single one was found to be in violation of Facebook guidelines. It the sponsors check clears, all is good with Facebook.

The final nail in the coffin for my FB account was when I was using the FB app on my phone this past December. I was commuting on the train to downtown Chicago and was watching about 2 hours a day of YouTube videos. Not surprisingly, I got a data usage warning about the 3rd week of December that I was within a gigabyte of my data limit. What was surprising was when I checked my mobile data usage, Facebook used more bandwidth than all my other apps COMBINED (including YouTube). I wasn't checking Facebook during the day at work and the hour trip each way downtown was spent on YouTube. So if I wasn't actively using the app, what was chewing up my bandwidth?

Re:Leaving Versus Inactive

[Sir_Eptishous]

It feels like a ghost town with food still left on the table from months to years ago when the people just left and never came back.

Correct.

I use an account I made for someone else years ago, that I have the pw for.
I get on every once in a while, and from what I've seen, it is becoming more like MySpace all the time.

Re:Leaving Versus Inactive

[No Longer an AC]

If one really wants to be a hipster, they should get back on MySpace right now. Just like vinyl and cassettes they're going to adopt the old social media site as their next fad sooner or later.

Then you can say you were back on MySpace before getting back on MySpace was cool.

Re:And going to Instagram

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing wrong with socializing on the internet.

There IS a big problem with sharing everything you do with Facebook, Google, et al.

We need private mechanisms of socialization, which share with the people you want to share with, and ONLY the ones you want to share with. No middlemen, no censorship, no data brokers.

Great age group, guys

[BringsApples]

Seriously, 12-35 isn't an age group, it's the entirety of the best days of your life (not that life past 35 isn't good, it's great, but generally it's not as good as the previous years). If you're still using social media past 35, I feel sorry for you. If you need a real friend, I'm here.

Re:Great age group, guys

[Oswald McWeany]

If you need a real friend, I'm here.

I need a real friend!

Re:Great age group, guys

[BringsApples]

ok buddy, what should we do first?

Re:Great age group, guys

[Areyoukiddingme]

ok buddy, what should we do first?

Why did I hear that in Liam Neeson's Good Cop voice from The LEGO Movie...? And are you going to try to strap him in front of a giant laser...

Re:Great age group, guys

[ljw1004]

If you're still using social media past 35, I feel sorry for you.

What?? Past 35 is when you have kids. Facebook seems one of the easiest way to share child photos+videos with grandparents.

Re:Great age group, guys

[swillden]

not that life past 35 isn't good, it's great, but generally it's not as good as the previous years

I think 35 is about when the best part starts.

Re:Great age group, guys

[BringsApples]

Why did I hear that in Liam Neeson's Good Cop voice from The LEGO Movie

Because you need a real friend, too?

Re:Great age group, guys

[BringsApples]

I figure we'd go in some public place and eat food. Then once we determine that the other isn't a serial-killer, we can move onto inviting each other to our houses, introduce each other to our respective families and friends, maybe join a kickball league, then next thing you know, we're buying each other Christmas gifts, and I'm in your wedding.

Re:Great age group, guys

[BringsApples]

Well, that's not a normal experience, and shows that you have a great deal of wisdom.

Re:Great age group, guys

[BringsApples]

Why can't you just send photos via text messages? Do you really have to give the pictures to FaceBook (whereby they take ownership), so that FaceBook can send your parents pics of their grandkids?

How about if I create a web page on my computer at home, and you upload all of your personal information, pictures of your kids, whatever, and then your family and friends can also log into my server and see said stuff? I'll do this for free. And if you want to, I'll allow all of your family and friends to upload content, and you can see their stuff. If you also want, I'll create a chat program that'll run on that site, and y'all can all text each other ...anything that you want, and don't hold back. I will take ownership of all of the data, and of course, in no way do I plan to turn anyone down that offers to pay for my newly acquired data - thought I should mention that. But hey, it's [blink] FREE [/blink], so...

That's the FaceBook business model.

Re:Great age group, guys

[dcw3]

Don't feel sorry for me. I'm 60, and posted about my upcoming retirement last night. 45 of my friends have already responded. And no, I don't have FB friends that I barely know. And yes, I know FB is a shithole, but I've yet to see a good alternative when your friends are spread all over the country, and a few in other countries.

Re:Great age group, guys

[dcw3]

I didn't join FB until my kid was in high school. It was another tool for me to keep up with what she was doing. And then I was also able to catch up with old friends who I hadn't heard from in ages, or totally lost track of.

Re:Great age group, guys

[dcw3]

At 60, I would say that the late 20s and up to ~40 were the best years of my life. But, I'm about to retire to a lake, so a boat, a dog, and some fishing poles may change my opinion.

Re:Great age group, guys

[ljw1004]

Why can't you just send photos via text messages? Do you really have to give the pictures to FaceBook (whereby they take ownership), so that FaceBook can send your parents pics of their grandkids?

I can't send photos and videos by text because (1) international texts are ruinously expensive, (2) sending a 2min high-res video clip isn't really possible over text, (3) text message would result in too many parent-support-calls "could you send that again please?" or "I got a new phone and I've lost all the videos of my grandchildren" or "I'm out of space", (4) maintaining a group chat of 8 grandparents+uncles generates too much traffic which would make the tech-savvy uncles disengage, and sending each photo individually to 8 grandparents+uncles would be too much work on my part.

That's the FaceBook business model.

I know what the business model is. I'm telling you that for the scenario/demographic in question, when you consider the end-to-end experience with non-technie people, it's well worth it.

I also share photos and videos via OneDrive sometimes, but that's quite difficult for non-technie people to get a grip on. It also doesn't have a rich enough commenting model to build the kind of social bonds we aim to build by sharing pics of grandchildren.

I also used to run my own IMAP mailserver because I didn't trust any company with my email archive. Don't anymore because I wasn't a confident enough sysadmin to maintain security and reliability, and I got those things better by paying an email-hosting company to do it for me.

Re:Great age group, guys

[Darinbob]

Oh my, that sounds too complex for me.

Re:Great age group, guys

[No Longer an AC]

I think how one uses social media determines if one is pathetic or not. An obsessive user is pathetic regardless of age although perhaps more understandable among the younger set.

Do real friends bring apples?

Re:Great age group, guys

[BringsApples]

Ahh, internationally speaking, that makes much more sense (and I feel silly for not thinking about that before). Cheers for keeping your folks as close as you can!

Re:Great age group, guys

[BringsApples]

There's a saying that goes something like, "Beauty is a curse for women, in the same way that money is a curse for men." The lesson there is to love yourself for what you really are, and not for some temporary quality.

When we're young, we don't consider so many things, and in not doing so, we enjoy the freedom that comes with not caring. As we get older, we generally feel the weight of the world, and it generally causes people to feel depressed, just waiting to die. But when this isn't the case, it's because the person usually spent their early years considering more things than average people do, and when they get older, they've worked out methods to stay in touch with the part of them that doesn't change. Being in touch with the part of yourself that doesn't change produces wisdom.

One problem with being a web site

[rsilvergun]

is that there's not a lot to keep your users coming back. All it takes is for them and their immediate circle to switch to anther networking site or method. Something hipper and cooler. Once you lose the young 'uns you become uncool real fast. It's only a matter of time before you're associated with... email (*hurk*).

Re:One problem with being a web site

[Darinbob]

I have friends not on any social media, so the email is the main contact method and it gets a lot of use.

They are not leaving Facebook

[SPopulisQR]

Many users have multiple accounts so that you can safely check on other people. At some point you stop using those other accounts... Facebook for many people is nothing but interactive address book, with messaging capabilties.

Alternate theory

[chispito]

Maybe it isn't that

All the bad press about Facebook might be catching up to the company.

Maybe it is that the attention spans of those 12-34 year olds have slidden even farther. Or maybe it's just that the platform was due to start declining anyway as people, finally, start to understand how advertising-based business models and OSINT work.

Re:Alternate theory

[Anonymous Coward]

man i wish slidden was a real word

Re:Alternate theory

[chispito]

man i wish slidden was a real word

Sigh. I was going to make a "cromulent" joke but I'm too disappointed in myself. I'll try to scrub it from my brain.

The 'Gram

[PopeRatzo]

Did you know that the number of US users "leaving Facebook" is almost exactly the same as the number of US users joining Instagram? ...which is owned by Facebook.

Sorry, Americans, you played yourself.

Re:The 'Gram

[DontBeAMoran]

SMS is not free. Try to send and receive SMS on a phone without a SIM card, without any carrier contract.

Re:The 'Gram

[DontBeAMoran]

So I guess what you're saying is that Canada and the USA both suck.

Businesses will be the last holdouts

[reboot246]

Businesses, at least those that advertise, absolutely love facebook. Seems that most ads end with, "Like us on facebook!" Which, of course, gives me just one more reason to dislike them and not do business with them.*

If we can somehow get businesses to stop their facebook habit, then we could finally see the end of it.

*If they're that unconcerned about their own privacy, then how could I ever trust them with mine?

Re:Businesses will be the last holdouts

[Dracos]

It's not every business exactly. The ad industry loves facebook, and they've added as much integration as they can think of to their client services.

Facebook solved this for me

[Grand Facade]

by locking me out of my account and demanding legal proof of my name!

The good ones?

[TJHook3r]

The good ones leaving or the anti-vaxxers etc? I think I know the answer!

For now...

[QuietLagoon]

... I've left LinkedIN. But I'm staying with FB for a while. I have cut back my already meager participation to nearly no participation on FB, though. I cut back for one main reason beside the whole mess that is FB nowadays - when I log on, I cannot get FB to show me my newsfeed in the manner I want to see it, for some reason, FB thinks it knows better what items on my news feed to show me first. So long as FB continues to do that, I will know that I have little to no control over what I do on FB, so I'm out of there eventually.

Re:For now...

[CaptainDork]

Look at FBP. It overrides the default view order and can hide all or part of the left and right panes. I used it before I deleted.

Fun Fact: Facebook does not allow for posting that link in your timeline.

Bonus: If you log in using Chrome, there's an extension that deletes shit by month, going back as far as you like. I used Social Book Post Manager. It took a while, but it works.

For Twitter, use https://www.tweetdelete.net/

Re:For now...

[QuietLagoon]

Thanks for the pointer, by my leaning at this point is to leave FB, and not try to make staying their better.

bad press is not the problem

[jsepeta]

Mark Zuckerberg's lack of ethics is the problem. We're the product and we don't want to be bought, sold, or processed.

Re:bad press is not the problem

[ZoomieDood]

Hmmm...

The NY Times is a product I (reluctantly) pay for (yes, I know I can get it for free), and yet I keep getting notices at the bottom of my pages that they want me to accept ads...

Yeaaaah, NO!

I'm not wanting to pay for the privilege of seeing ads.

I'm a statistic!

[CaptainDork]

I posted this the other day.

I deleted Facebook ...

Disclaimer: I am not in the demographic listed in TFS. I'm 73 and very disappointed in the Internet at large.

Good. The sooner it dies the better for everyone

[Rick Schumann]

Humanity would be better off leaving all so-called 'social media' and learning to actually interact with actual people live in person again.

Do they really need bad press?

[RuiFRibeiro]

The chap app is annoying and gives more publicity every day it is passing, and even is construed in such a way for you to see movies or other functionalities by mistake.
The feed is annoying, and they try to change it and fight regularly plugins/app filtering it; they also invent news ways of spamming us, like "a donate bottom"....
So little wonder people is leaving....

People are quitting Facebook?

[DontBeAMoran]

I wonder why...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

It used to be about friends

[hoggoth]

Facebook used to be where I went to see what my friends are up to. Now it's where I go to be bombarded with sponsored crap. It's all political outrage, cat videos and click-bait.