Researchers Claim Facebook Is 'Dead and Buried' To Many Young Users 457
JoeyRox writes "The recent decline in Facebook's popularity with teenagers appears to be worsening. A Global Social Media Impact study of 16 to 18 year olds found that many considered the site 'uncool' and keep their profiles alive only to keep in touch with older relatives, for whom the site remains popular. Researches say teens have switched to using WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Twitter in place of Facebook."
No loss (Score:3, Interesting)
All I've ever seen contributed by teens is slang and whining and posts of crap they claim is music.
Now get off my lawn!
Too complicated (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that this is where the snapchats and twitters do so very well. With a very simple core feature set it is not hard to keep focused on what works. But with facebook it almost seems like they don't want to leave anything out just in case some competitor comes along and eats their lunch.
I think it all boils down to the question: what is Facebook? With the highly successful recent upstarts that is an easy thing to answer. But with facebook the question is actually quite complex. It is very difficult for facebook to be so much to so many.
To sum it up they have lost their 30 second elevator pitch. But maybe with this information Facebook will realize that their core audience aren't teenyboppers but adults and thus will focus their feature set in that direction.
Re:Who would believe it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed.
I'm 25, I stopped using facebook about 2 years ago (suspended my account even, email spam is annoying).
I signed up to twitter, I still have my account, but honestly I don't think I ever looked at twitter after creating an account, I'm not even sure what my username is.
Communication is personal, not "lets spam the world with my words". I have a phone, I text and call people I actually want to communicate with. I have skype and IRC for online / casual discussions with people who aren't in my immediate world. Forums and mailing lists for more technical and important things. Email covers everything else.
Needless to say, with the above tools at my, far more appropriate disposal - there's literally no need, want, or remote desire for facebook, nor twitter. Nor was there ever.
Re:Too complicated (Score:3, Interesting)
To me, FB was becoming too much of an "all eggs in one basket" type of site. It handles authentication for third parties, a gaming platform, messaging, calendars, contact lists. None of this is something unique to FB, because other applications or websites have been doing this.
Then there are the concerns about privacy. At least SnapChat offers the illusion of privacy which people are wanting since there have been stories and stories about FB data falling into the wrong hands [1].
To boot, I don't know anyone that really _likes_ FB. At best the service is tolerated because it is expected. However, G+, VK, and other social networking sites offer virtually the same thing, so there isn't anything other than critical mass that makes FB stand out to a subscriber base [2].
[1]: One example personally was someone tagging me while I was browsing a humidor in a FB pic. A week later the health insurance company I had at the time then sent a demand letter that I either go for a physical or pay smoker's rates.
[2]: Advertisers and their backend are different, as FB is extremely good, but this isn't as visible to the product (i.e. accountholders.)
Kids don't have much disposable money (Score:5, Interesting)
After spending all their money on cell phones, kids cannot afford to buy products advertised to them on Facebook.
The fact that Facebook's customer base is morphng into older folks only helps its business model of selling ads.
Re:Too complicated (Score:3, Interesting)
A clean, intuitive interface would do wonders for both services.
Be careful when asking for "clean".
The newer generation of "UI designers" (and I use that phrase lightly) thinks that clean means adding more whitespace and blowing everything up full screen.
Re: Who would believe it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny, I just had a conversation with the same answer from my low 20-somethings sister. She never uses Facebook and chats with instagram and snapchat. Seems inefficient, but maybe that's just me!
She does have a twitter account--a marketing course in one of her college classes required all the students to open a twitter account. If THAT'S not the death knell of a social network (professors ordering students to open an account!), I don't know what is.
No Surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
Teenagers want and need to find a place of their own, to form their own subculture. A new technology comes along, they jump on board because they are highly adaptable, their parents less, often much less, so. But after five years the teenagers are getting out of their teens and those entering the teens once again need to find their own space. Therefore, there can be no permanent place for teens unless it puts off older people joining or staying. Anyway, someone needs to beta test the new communications paradigms.
Re:It's true! (Score:5, Interesting)
Like many slashdot users, for most of my life, I've been accused of spending too much time on computers.
As a child of the 80s, I've spent countless hours on BBSes, terminal internet, dialup internet, AOL instant messenger, battle.net, mmos, civilization 1, civilization 2, civilization 3, etc. ;-)
Today, however, I feel like a luddite. I don't use Facebook. I don't use instagram or snapchat or whatsapp. I read one or two twitter accounts, but don't have an account myself. My wife is totally hooked on Facebook, and I'm now I'm the one complaining about spending so much time on the computer!
It's a bizarre world.
Re: Who would believe it? (Score:5, Interesting)
She does have a twitter account--a marketing course in one of her college classes required all the students to open a twitter account. If THAT'S not the death knell of a social network (professors ordering students to open an account!), I don't know what is.
I don't think a professor can demand that of the students. What if a student cannot accept the EULA of Twitter? Will the school refund the tuition and other expenses incurred before knowing about this requirement?
Re: Who would believe it? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the inefficiency is part of the point, honestly. I personally dislike Facebook exactly because it has tried to be where you contact everyone you know, regardless of the context, and I simply don't want to spend the time to curate a stark divide between sharing with coworkers and friends when I don't share that much on Facebook in the first place. At this point in my life, it's like my contact list, except that it posts cat videos.
The old Facebook dismissal is that if you want share something with your real friends, you pick up the phone. I think that's the slightly wrong way to look at it, but it has a point. It's a bit of signaling, actually, that is accomplished by using the phone or any more involved means of contact. If I take the time to learn your details in a completely new or inefficient contact system, it means that messages from me are more likely to be significant because there's a greater barrier to me contacting you and I clearly put more effort into it that pulling up your profile on Facebook.
Google+ is for you (Score:5, Interesting)
The old Facebook dismissal is that if you want share something with your real friends, you pick up the phone. I think that's the slightly wrong way to look at it, but it has a point. It's a bit of signaling, actually, that is accomplished by using the phone or any more involved means of contact.
This is exactly what google+ excels at. Having circles of friends is much closer to the way we live . Of course, the circles are very small, since no one else uses google+. :(
Hmm, this is also closer to real life too
For those interested in photography though, check it out. It is worth it.
Re:Not all the "older" folks use Facebook ! (Score:2, Interesting)
I created a Facebook account for exactly one single purpose: To make sure nobody makes one in my name. So there is now an empty FB account with my name on it.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Who would believe it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Makes me wonder what Google did wrong with G+ to get so little popularity - the categorization of friends into separate groups and selective per-group availability of your content seemed to be among the initial assumptions (based on press releases from long time ago, I have no idea whether it works as advertised). That seems to be the right solution.
Well, being the right solution doesn't make a social network popular, automatically.
However, G+ has its flaws as well. Its main fault is that it is purely people-centric in terms of sharing information, and is blind to topics. I'm interested in reading about Linus Torvald's work on Linux. I'm not interested in his scuba-diving hobby. With G+ it is very difficult to get the one without the other. It requires that Linus use multiple accounts (something Google doesn't like), or that he not post publicly and maintain separate circles for the millions of people who are interested in his work on Linux vs his other hobbies.
Sure, for the little noise Linus generates I'll overlook it. However, the problem is that this does not scale up. When you want to communicate with hundreds of people it is really disruptive when many are "off-topic" much of the time. That's why mailing lists and forums enforce topic-adherence.
What Google+ really needs is the ability to not follow Linus, but to follow posts by Linus with the hashtag #linux or whatever.
I probably take a harsher stand on this than many, but the sentiment really is out there. A few months ago the rage on G+ was begging all your friends not to share their "+1's." It wasn't that people weren't interested in having access to that data. The problem was that the UI turned it into noise. Not only do I now have to read about Linus's scuba-diving, but if Linus +1's his sister's announcement of the birth of his nephew I get to read about that too. Such a thing only makes sense if you treat the network like most people treat Facebook - a place to interact with family and family-safe friends.