Why Teenagers Are Fleeing Facebook

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/5-reasons-teenagers-are-fleeing-facebook-182756430.html

by ytNumbers • 13 years ago

108 94 13 years ago

finance.yahoo.com

delinka• 13 years ago

These are reasons I left Facebook. Well, all but "parents" anyway. I was a parent before Facebook happened.

Everyone is all concerned about how teenagers are fleeing Facebook, but they all fail to realize why teenagers will head back to Facebook. It was originally designed as the online version of College, a way to interact with new and old friends. When all these kids leave their high schools and head off to college where are they going to keep in touch with their old friends, Facebook. When they meet someone new in College where will they add this new friend, Facebook. Facebook is the initial meeting point for new friends and then once you become better friends it is then that you follow and add them on other social media sites. If Facebook sees a huge decline in College age students in the next few years then I will be worried about their future, but until then it doesn't matter what the teenagers do because when they begin to grow up, they will join the rest of society and use their Facebook. Teenagers are not the demographic to follow when understanding Facebook's fate.

Also, they are all leaving Facebook to use intagram, a Facebook owned company, or use snapshat which will die off in popularity in the coming years.

foobarian• 13 years ago

I never cared for the various made up features on FB such as likes, pokes, wall posts etc. but yes, like you said, the keeping in touch really is its killer app. It's basically a self-updating rolodex with discovery.

jinushaun• 13 years ago

Right, because teens were never the original market anyway. A lot of us original Facebookers hated it when FB opened up to high schoolers.

interstitial• 13 years ago

The "us" in your comment shows the genius behind Zuckerberg's exclusivity as a growth model and it's seeming irony.

Hansi• 13 years ago

I agree Facebook would have no benefit for me when I was a teenager since all the people I wanted to interact with and cared about were close by and easy to get a hold of in school or via phone.

When Facebook went mainstream I was already in university and had started losing contact with people from grade school, high school etc. But facebook allowed me to reconnect with those people and some of my best friends today are actually people that I knew but didn't spend alot of time with in grade school because they were in different classes but through FB realized they had very similar personalities to me and we became great friends.

Facebook is also the preferred means of organizing events, groups and using messaging instead of e-mails in almost all of my friend circles.

May view may be skewed though since I'm from Iceland where Facebook has something close to 50% of the whole country has a Facebook account and 90% in the 25-35 age group. But I live in London though where the use of Facebook is a mixed bag, most of the foreigners here I know use it but my English friends seem less interested in it and prefer e-mail over FB messages.

coldcode• 13 years ago

Exactly correct. The further your friends are from you the more you want to interact with them in some way. If everyone you know is at school who needs FB. I keep in touch with friends from two generations many of whom are spread all over the world and even those locally I don't see often enough.

However I wish FB would be replaced by something simpler that was just for keeping in touch with friends and little else. But since everyone is on FB it's hard to change until everyone has (1) a better choice (2) a reason to leave.

abraxasz• 13 years ago

Excellent point. Every two or three week or so, I'm wondering why I'm still on FB. Answer? Because there are those people I met when I was traveling a lot, and even though we don't talk much or at all, it's good to know that there is this one central place where I can get in touch with any of them.

raverbashing• 13 years ago

Yes

Facebook is more of a "friends catalog", you don't care about the newsfeed so much but it allows you to interact in some ways.

But the real action happens elsewhere.

bentcorner• 13 years ago

When all these kids leave their high schools and head off to college where are they going to keep in touch with their old friends, Facebook.

If teenagers decide to congregate on a different social network, why would they stop using that and go back to facebook just because they go to college?

If you and your closest friends find a better place online to meet that doesn't suffer from facebook's "everybody's there and can see what you're doing" problem, why wouldn't you continue meeting there after high school?

larrys2• 13 years ago

"If teenagers decide to congregate on a different social network, why would they stop using that and go back to facebook just because they go to college?"

Not only that but parent comment (which does make some valid points) doesn't take into account what could be called the reverse network effect. If stories of facebook's lack of popularity continue to surface (as well as the reasons for it) things would begin to accelerate (stock drops, advertisers no longer see it in a positive light) users who wouldn't leave begin to leave or discover alternatives, someone is spurred on to develop a product which attracts more of their users etc. In other words usage drops, morale at facebook drops it's no longer the place to be. Facebook hasn't been around that long and after a while it is entirely possible that even users today will tire of it and move elsewhere. And losing the network effect will make it less valuable to anyone who sticks around.

jgreen102• 13 years ago

Bebo, Hyves, MySpace were very popular among teenagers.

Your life dramatically changes after high school, and the types of products and services you use change with it.

demallien2• 13 years ago

Worrying about your parents being on the same social network as yourself ceases to be an issue when you become an adult yourself, and you no longer have to hide the fact that you were out partying when you were supposed to be studying at a friend's house. And as the GP notes, Facebook solves the problem that teens haven't yet had to confront - how do you catch up with your friends when you don't seem them several times a week?

In fact, the thing that has made Facebook such a phenomenon is not that teens found it cool, but rather that the much larger older population found it useful. I would be willing to bet that teens don't even make up 10% of Facebook at this point in time. When adults stop posting and stop receiving notifications on Facebook, then Facebook has something to worry about. Until then, my money would be on teens gravitating back to Facebook as they get older, and being cool becomes less important than knowing that all of your friends are contactable on Facebook.

X42• 13 years ago

you forgot skype and many other new contenders, what you say sounds highly biased and short sighted. I totally agree with @raverbashing he is so right that Facebook is nothing more than a friends catalog.

philwelch4• 13 years ago

Well, that's one possibility, but high schoolers were hooked on Facebook too, at least before it opened up to the general public. The generation that uses Facebook now has used it since high school or college, but the next generation didn't start using in high school and they might not start in college, either. Maybe Facebook is less of a "stage of life" thing and more of a generational thing.

GhotiFish2• 13 years ago

This should not be on the front page. I can only assume that because the readership wants facebook to go down, they're happy to uplift any story that suggests that they are.

Look at this articles sources.

"... you don’t want their mom to yell at you,” my 15-year-old son told me.
My 17-year-old daughter told me about a friend with an aunt who routinely lurks around her niece’s Facebook account.
one of my daughter’s high-school friends explained.
or prompts to answer "questions about me." Renaud, a 19-year-old Facebook user at McGill University in Montreal (ok this one is reasonable)
one of my son’s friends emailed
another of my daughter’s friends complained.

I've got some problems with this article as well

1. Parents. this was clearly written by an isolated one.

2. Too much pointless stuff.

3. Too many ads. It's like this was designed specifically so people would be click baited.

4. It's Vapid. As if there is no substance to this article at all.

5. Fake friends. (this one is a guess)

freshyill• 13 years ago

The secret, powerful cabal that decides which stories end up on the front page of Hacker News is going to be after you for exposing this. Quick! Run for safety! I'll hold them off as long as I can!

GhotiFish2• 13 years ago

Interesting. You actually think this is worth material for HN?

Personally I felt bad about that comment, because it was shooting fish in a barrel, but it seems those fish needed to be shot.

hughes• 13 years ago

When people leave Facebook, where do they go?

Is there a different social network that doesn't have these problems?

pestaa• 13 years ago

Yes, it is called the Internet.

chadwickthebold• 13 years ago

The original social network: speaking to people IRL.

leokun• 13 years ago

Not IRL, but texting, via whatsapp, photos via snapchat and instagram.

In real life social networks are ephemeral. Someone you meet at a party and have a good time with for the duration of that party is immediately part of your near intimate social network, at least now. You might even share personal things with that person. The next day you might find it weird if they called you however if you didn't leave the night explicitly on some kind of terms to hang out more.

Over time we grow closer to some people and further away from others.

Facebook isn't engineered to do handle this. It just wants more and more data, more connections. It doesn't reflect real life. Build a social network where friending and un-friending is determined algorithmically, based on the number interactions and type and their content instead of a button you have to toggle and it may be take off. Problem is, you'd have to own all the channels through which people communicate.

Turns out people don't want to have to maintain a social graph.

alan_cx• 13 years ago

"When people leave Facebook, where do they go?"

Out?

hellbanTHIS2• 13 years ago

I'm sensing that many people now avoid anything that resembles a 'social network', as if they tried it and are now over the whole concept. Facebook left a bad taste in a lot of mouths.

Edit: NPR's All Things Considered did a story on this exact thing a while ago: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/06/17/192718821/teen... and apparently Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and Vine are big ones for the teens they talked to.

billwilliams2• 13 years ago

Snap chat. Sexting is the new communication.

kmfrk2• 13 years ago

I'm curious; does anyone[1] experience a pressure to join a social network the same way I did in the earlier years of Facebook where all activities, conversations, and events were moved to that platform - and not using it rendered you a non-person?

There's the pressure of "all the cool kids use it", and then there's the ostracism that comes with not using the platform.

There's "traction", and then there's "Facebook traction".

[1]: Outside countries like China, Japan, South Korea that might have their own social media exclusive to Asia.

pearjuice2• 13 years ago

Whatsapp. It is now a fundamental piece of communication in my country. Without it, you can barely communicate. Texting (SMS) is dead. Phone calls are too intimate, the minutes too expensive. Everyone has data connectivity due to their smartphones. I resisted for a very long time but at some point you will HAVE to get yourself into it. Especially when you get frustrated looks when people cannot find you in their Whatsapp contact list.

k-mcgrady2• 13 years ago

I've noticed the same thing. I find it strange though. Most people I know have smart phones on contracts and most smartphones come with unlimited SMS. Still these people prefer Whatsapp and Viber. I drives me nuts as I'd rather not send me communications through yet another company.

EGreg4• 13 years ago

Where, Israel?

ben1040• 13 years ago

Reminds me of when when it got harder to find out about when/where local bands were playing if you weren't actively using MySpace, because posting something on MySpace was easier, cheaper, and had a wider reach than going all over town flyering bars.

dghughes• 13 years ago

One really good reason for adults to leave Facebook is it has become an HR magnet.

Pitarou• 13 years ago

Says Yahoo!?!?

rocky1138• 13 years ago

Watch out for ad hominem attacks here, they don't fit with the HN vibe. That being said, I get your point. Reading the article I thought it ridiculous to say tweens are leaving for Instagram, which is owned by Facebook (how do you leave a company but not leave a company?), and Tumblr, which is a Yahoo service.

I'm not entirely sure the author's sample size is large enough, either.

_pmf_• 13 years ago

And so it begins ...

david9273• 13 years ago

You're downvoted? Really? I expected more from HN.

Teenagers are the demographic that started FB. Everyone followed them. If they leave, everyone will eventually follow. It's nothing personal; it's just how this stuff works.

I recommend you read The Innovator's Dilemma by Clay Christensen which explains it all quite nicely.

wyck2• 13 years ago

No offense, but the only people who care if Facebook is cool or not are other teenagers. They also think eating dinner with the family at 6 is not cool, honestly who cares.

jfoutz• 13 years ago

No offense, but avoid a career in marketing.

wyck2• 13 years ago

I will avoid a career in maketing the targets tenagers with the same zeal that I would avoid the plague.

adregan2• 13 years ago

Everyone seems concerned with teenagers fleeing facebook, but I've found that I have also been "fleeing" facebook. My time spent on the site has been diminishing—partly due to the fact that in my late 20s, so many of my friends are posting picture after picture of their children—and as my time spent on the site diminishes, I notice that stories I'd probably care have been squeezed out of the news feed, making the site less interesting and feeding into my distance.

I know I'll probably keep the account for reconnecting with old friends every few months or so, but I get the feeling that the way I use and think about facebook needs to shift for me to get any sort of value beyond occasionally checking in on people or requesting phone #'s when I happen to be in the same town.

larrys2• 13 years ago

"in my late 20s, so many of my friends are posting picture after picture of their children"

I'm older and I can't even imagine what it would be like if I had the amount of friends that younger people have and they all or even most posted pictures of their kids and every random event they attended. Even now with the amount that I do have (quite small by choice) it's to much.

Wait to those children of your friends start playing sports or are in school plays (I'm assuming by your age the children are quite young I guess.)

adregan2• 13 years ago

Posting videos of plays and soccer games probably recorded on a full size iPad. I hadn't thought of that, yet. It's terrifying.

GFischer• 13 years ago

Facebook does a great job of filtering what it shows you.

I have lots of "friends" on Facebook, and once in a while I see a photo (usually of a major event) of a classmate I haven't seen in a long while and I didn't remember he was on my friends list.

My Facebook use is mostly to keep in touch with my family abroad, and we have a closed group. I usually don't post much to my broader "friends" list.

enraged_camel• 13 years ago

As a 28-year old single male, browsing Facebook and seeing pictures of dating and married couples makes me feel like shit. It's ironic, because a tool that's supposed to keep people connected amplifies my feelings of loneliness. So I find myself checking it less and less often.

gdilla• 13 years ago

Kids aren't going to converge on a platform their parents use. End of story. That's why FB was so 'in' when it first started. literally no one over 21.

hellbanTHIS2• 13 years ago

And that's really the last word on the subject. It's done growing and unless they do some major branching out it's probably as profitable as it will ever be. Which is going to unfortunately traumatize a whole bunch of stockholders and sink a lot of other innocent tech stocks but when we look back it's probably going to seem pretty obvious that Facebook wasn't ever going to be the next Google or even the next LinkedIn. It's audience is too fickle.

TillE• 13 years ago

Facebook was so much fun in its university exclusive days, because it was like a quasi-private campus community. With groups, it was even a good way to meet new people.

As far as I can tell, all of that is long dead. And 99.9% of Facebook's growth came after that era, certainly. But I still think that the future of "social networks" is going to look a lot more like early Facebook than current Facebook.

kamilszybalski• 13 years ago

I personally have been using Facebook more because of the ways I've structured my feed, i.e, I no longer follow friends, but instead follow thought leaders, specific companies/brands and other information sources. For me, Facebook would be even more valuable if it did a better job of understand who I am, what I want to see and when I want to see it. This would then be further impressive if Facebook did a better job of showing me new information based on my expressed interests.

henrikschroder• 13 years ago

the granddaddy of all social networks—Facebook

Have people seriously forgotten what socialising on the internet was like before Facebook? There were social networks way before Facebook, and there will be other social networks after Facebook.

They might not be called "social networks" though, because just like the services themselves, the words we use to describe them change constantly as well. Culture changes constanty, after all.

guyzero• 13 years ago

How about the "not dead grandparent of all social networks"? Maybe Friendster and Six Degrees are the deceased great-grandparents, only seen in faded daguerreotypes.

jgreen102• 13 years ago

It's more like... the social network. Everything else is in the perimeter.

vanadium• 13 years ago

It's great to see someone else mention SixDegrees; it's the progenitor of the modern "social network" as people relate the term today, although I'm not sure it ever attracted many teenagers in the late 90s.

Hard to believe that was 16 years ago. Jeez.

kenbellows• 13 years ago

Seriously, have we already completely forgotten the neon-colored wonder of Myspace?

mherkender• 13 years ago

I suspect people are using granddaddy more often for emphasis, as in "the king of a social networks--Facebook", not describing how old they are, since that comment was followed by details on how big Facebook is.

Not saying I like it, but that's what I took it to mean.

wdr1• 13 years ago

"granddaddy" doesn't mean first. Given a lot of sites are the 2nd or 3rd generation derivatives of FB, I think it's a reasonable use of the term.

nobleach• 13 years ago

This is actually a big deal for Facebook. 20 years ago, no one would have really cared WHAT teenagers considered "hip". The reason was, teenagers had next to zero buying power. Teenagers were trying to act like "grownups". Now, take a look at any of your teenager friends/family. They're standing there in a mirror with a brand new iPhone and a Macbook Pro in the background. Now look at a picture with their moms and/or dads. Notice that much of the time, the adults are trying to dress like the kids. The kids now represent an enormous potential as the adults are just dying to hold on to their youth. For now it's wise for any company that wants to turn a huge impulse profit to pay attention to what the fickle teen generation is currently considering cool. Vine is a perfect example.

philwelch4• 13 years ago

20 years ago was 1993. Marketing obsession with teenagers predates 1993 by decades, and with good reason--brand impressions created by age 16 can last for life.

In earlier, healthier economic times, teenagers actually had buying power too because they could work minimum wage jobs without having to pay bills.

hsitz• 13 years ago

I was going to say something similar. The poster sounds like a young one, assuming things were different before he was born. Not so. For example, back in the 60's muscle cars were hugely important for auto makers and they were largely an object of teen lust. High schoolers and their cars used to be really important; young people's love affair with cars has waned in last couple decades. And teenagers have determined large amounts of adult (i.e, their parents) spending for long time, which has made them target of advertisers for just as long.

MarkTee• 13 years ago

What bills do teenagers have to pay now that they didn't in 1993?

The only thing that I can think of would be a phone bill.

polskibus• 13 years ago

Everybody short FB now! On a more serious note - I can sense a trend rising in FB bashing, someone with better access than mine should check whether the investment banks and hedge funds are shorting FB in large volumes. This is the problem with public companies - there is always the stock market in the background and you can never tell whether bad news are true or just ordered by the shorting side.

D9u• 13 years ago

    one of his biggest issues with Facebook is that “it’s normal to be friends with people you don’t know.”

There was a time when the rules stated that you had to actually know the people on your friends list in real life... This was before FB went commercial...

This is one of the reasons why I deleted my FB account.

Roboprog• 13 years ago

I think the end of the article summed it up pretty well: the signal to noise ratio dropped too low. (even if teens wouldn't use the term signal to noise)

ctdonath• 13 years ago

Social media sites have a distinct finite lifespan. I've seen many come and go, all peaking with the same sense of "this is taking over and will last forever". Facebook is showing the exact same cycle, facing total burnout within 5 years. This is a good time to cash out, and a good time to build the next virtual venue.

etler• 13 years ago

And now they're all on instagram instead... Yeah, that purchase makes a lot more sense doesn't it?

billwilliams2• 13 years ago

When an article's main source is the author's son, you know you're in for a treat.

badman_ting• 13 years ago

I am not too sure about this narrative in general, but let's assume it's true that teens are leaving FB and not coming back. As "The Ad Contrarian" notes frequently in his blog, all the people with money are over 50. So, it actually might be awesome for FB that they have so many of those folks. Our culture is obsessed with young people and for some reason thinks that's where the money is, but it's not.

mkr-hn• 13 years ago

Young people used to drive purchasing decisions. That might still be the case.

mirrorshades• 13 years ago

Facebook is pretty tiresome, for many of the reasons already beaten to death here. It's also nothing new, there were "social networks" long before MySpace, rewind to the 90s and there was the uber-cool MindVox, the less cool and old people version the Well. Nothing new here.

What strikes me is the simple fact that it's kind of useless. I don't need endless status updates of people I don't really know, if I need to find my friends or share something with them, there's this new thing called a smartphone, it has my Contacts, I can share whatever I want with them and not spend my time staring at endless scrolling ads and the flotsam of people's lives.

kazagistar• 13 years ago

Teenagers, not surprisingly, are hip to corporate exploitation.

That's why they use Pintrest instead!

brohoolio• 13 years ago

My wife quit Facebook. It was her primary method of interacting with people, primary connection, so it was hard to decide to disconnect.

Facebook made her feel like shit.

She's had a bad job or two before, and in the evening I needed to go on an hour long walk with her to help unwind from her job. Facebook upset her at that level.

Since she quit Facebook, she's been happier, feels better and has been more focused on herself.

I can only imagine teenagers have it worse.

Full disclosure it could be worse for her because we lost our baby this year and everyone else is having kids.

ihenriksen• 13 years ago

About two years ago I overheard some preteen kids talking about them leaving Facebook when their parents joined and added them as friends. I'm guessing they don't want their parents too much involved in their social life.

Why Teenagers Are Fleeing Facebook

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