Why Teens Are Losing Interest In Facebook
--
I have been an avid user of Facebook for 5 years now and I must say that I love it. I am able to stay connected with friends and family all around the world, share ideas and articles that I find intriguing, and have fascinating discussions with all kinds of people. I am sure that I am not the only one that loves Facebook for these reasons and when I talk to others ages 20-30 about their Facebook use, they usually tell me that they check it at least 5 times a day (Studies show an average of 14 times a day).
This is a great sign for Facebook, especially since their college demographic continues to grow, right? This was in 2011 and, unfortunately, things aren’t looking as great for Facebook today. Their growth has since slowed and we are starting to see a change, one that could turn Facebook into the next Myspace.
Facebook, the next Myspace?
Today, during the Facebook earnings call, CFO David Ebersman reported that the usage of Facebook by teens remained the same from Q2 to Q3 but they “did see see a decrease in daily users specifically among younger teens.” This, as you can tell, has many people wondering why there is such a decrease. Teens are a huge demographic for Facebook and many advertisers rely on Facebook in order to reach the teen demographic, so if this trend continues, then Facebook might start losing its popularity.
So, why the decrease?
My age (19) and location (Silicon Valley) give me the opportunity to speak with many teens, teens who are especially up to date with technology and usually the first ones to test and decide what the cool new apps will be. After speaking with many of them, mostly 15 or younger, they all tell me that they have Facebook accounts but hardly use them. They say that even their friends don’t use Facebook often and therefore they see no reason to use it themselves. This is a growing shift and I have seen it myself. We are on the verge of a massive transfer of social networking power.
Many might be wondering, why the change? Wasn’t Facebook meant for teens? It was meant for teens but with changing times and technologies, comes change in behaviors. We are seeing a social networking paradigm shift that is actually deeply rooted in our societal evolution. Every year, our technology gets better, faster, and more intelligent. We seek out technology that was better than it was the previous year, while expecting it to improve the subsequent year. The faster our technology gets, the less time we want to spend waiting for some sort of stimulus.
The average attention span in 2000 was 12 seconds. The average attention span in 2012 was 8 seconds.
It’s no surprise that with technology’s increase in speed as well as a greater technological expansion in our daily lives, our attention spans are decreasing.
That is exactly why we are seeing a decrease in Facebook usage among teens. Teens don’t have the interest or attention span to spend time on Facebook and are looking for social networks that provide a large amount of content, quickly in a short amount of time.
What teens are looking for is instant gratification. If you don’t believe me, look at the most popular apps among teens today:
- Take a picture or 15 second video, throw on a filter, and share it in a matter of seconds.
- Scroll through friends photos/videos and double-tap to like.
Instagram provides a lot of content and a simple form for action (like button) in a short amount of time.
- Take a picture, throw on some text, set a timer for the picture to expire, and share it with as many people as you want.
- Get a timed picture with some sort of message from your friend and respond.
Snapchat makes it very simple for teens to chat in picture form all in a short amount of time.
- Record a six second video and share it with your friends.
- Scroll through six second videos and like them.
Vine restricts videos to six seconds which allows teens to consume a lot of content in a very short amount of time.
As you can see, the most popular apps provide quick and simple means for teens to create and share content. Thankfully, Facebook does own Instagram so they aren’t completely out of luck. As they continue to see a growing amount of people engage with Instagram more than Facebook, they must shift focus and leverage the power of instant gratification.
You can follow me on Twitter here.
