9 ms·

Facebook is basically dead and buried with UK teenagers

120 points by r0h1n 13y ago

dimfisch 13y ago
It's amazing how fast the world moves on.
- elnate 13y ago
  One age group in one country isn't exactly 'moved on' yet. Waning yes, but still a force to be reckoned with.
  - singingfish 13y ago
    pretty much seems that way in australia as well. source: father of 14 year old.
    - 69c69b 13y ago
      I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that one. Basically all social events are organised on Facebook with my friends because of how simple it is to do so and everyone uses it, general purpose chatting is also done on facebook to save credit Source: 17 year old Australian
      - singingfish 13y ago
        There's a fair difference between a 14 and a 17 year old.
  - jrs99 13y ago
    myspace was a force to be reckoned with.
    - Grue3 13y ago
      Myspace was a site for teenagers. Facebook isn't. Old people don't give a crap about what the newest fad of the week is.
      - jrs99 13y ago
        but old people die.
        brazzy 13y ago
        but young people turn into old people - and, at the moment, at a faster rate than old people are dying.
      - timthorn 13y ago
        Friends Reunited was most certainly not a site for teenagers, but suffered the same fate.
  - antr 13y ago
    "one country" that has a high GDP per capita, sweet-spot demographics for advertisers, and a high ad spend budget by marketers, that allows FB to generate considerable revenues. this is not just a "warning sign".
- oesmith 13y ago
  Don't forget, those teenagers entire families are now on Facebook. I concede that the actions of teenagers might be an indicator of what's to come, but the world has hardly 'moved on' yet.
thejosh 13y ago
There is always going to be one form of online chat that people will use, no matter the other websites. ICQ / MSN / FB Chat / WhatsApp / whatever it is in the future teens will use it and love it. I loved ICQ & MSN growing up, I can't wait to see what comes in the next 10 years.
- justincormack 13y ago
  Its amazing how badly google lost on this, from a great start.
nly 13y ago
The Facebook app is just a portal to the website. Apps that appeared as apps first seem to be a bit more of sanctuary, as I'm pretty sure mums and dads everywhere haven't quite yet mastered the whole app concept. My parents for instance still have feature phones despite using Facebook. Personally, I'm glad to see apps that are primarily used for conversation, rather than obsessing about what our 'friends' are doing every and any minute of the day, are becoming more popular. For me Facebook has wholly been replaced by Twitter and Whatsapp, and I've noticed my younger cousins are using BBM and Skype.
- wingerlang 13y ago
  In asia it seems that the *most popular messengers also includes some form of "timeline". Malaysia: WhatsApp Thailand (and Japan I think): Line But I guess they are still MOSTLY used for the direct chatting.
pikachu_is_cool 13y ago
WOW! Teenagers are moving away from Facebook? That's SHOCKING news. Fresh stuff, I had no idea Twitter and Whatsapp are also social networks! And I didn't know Facebook could be in competition with itself (Instagram). And it's not like I read the exact same article, except with actual content, two months ago. Definitely deserves to be on the front page of HN.
SurfScore 13y ago
I've found myself using Facebook less and less the older I get. I used it every day in high school, relatively often in college, and barely go on anymore. I have an account simply because I have to. Its always changing on me, there's a bunch of new stuff that I have no idea how to use, and my news feed is a bunch of annoying gibberish that I don't care about and don't feel like spending the time to improve. I'm not sure if I'm the norm or not, but if they're starting to lose the age segment I personally was most active in, that can't be a good thing. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years. On the plus side for Facebook, they own Instagram, one of the things said to be gaining the market they are losing, so they can still reach it. However, it remains to be seen how well they can monetize Instagram.
brazzy 13y ago
So, Facebook isn't anymore a cool new thing teenagers obsess about. Wowzers!! Does that really surprise anyone? It's not exactly a sustainable niche, kinda by definition. The real question is whether those teenagers, once grown up and less interested in beingt cool and different from their parents, will start seeing value in what Facebook offers, i.e. whether network effects in social media are cross-generational. I suspect so, since generations are not in fact discrete.
nknighthb 13y ago
I see no numbers anywhere. Just breathless rhetoric labelled "insights". Where is the evidence?
eftpotrm 13y ago
I'm in the UK and do voluntary work with teenagers. While I can't at all say my sample is representative or that I've I polled them to check, my experience is that it definitely isn't dead and buried; these teenagers definitely still use it, and in ways that don't suggest it's just to pander to their parents. Anecdote not data I know, but the headline conclusion sounds over-broad to me.
- melling 13y ago
  Yep, 2014 is looking like it's going to be the year of "FACEBOOK IS DEAD" articles. Just 9 days ago we discussed the end of the Facebook era. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6917392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6917392 Personally, I'm curious why we care that much? Is there some benefit to knowing the fate of Facebook? Are we shorting the stock?
  - aragot 13y ago
    ... and it's not the first one. As there are websites generating content in facebook format, such as jokes, philosophical quotes and personality quizzes, ... there seem to be websites generating content fitting HN. "Facebook", "teenagers" and "dead" is basically the magic receipe to climb up the newsfeed, now that NSA articles are downgraded by default on HN. Should we attempt to detect and bury HN submissions about teenagers leaving facebook?
  - LeeHunter 13y ago
    "Is there some benefit to knowing the fate of Facebook?" If you care about social media in general then yes, the fate of the world's largest social media platform is tremendously important. If your life or business doesn't intersect much with social media then, no.
    - melling 13y ago
      Companies come and go in both existence and importance. If Facebook goes away tomorrow, something will take its place. If your business is social media, wouldn't it be better to discuss how to improve it, new features, etc.? Where can a small company create a viable business?
spobin 13y ago
I'm in the UK and my 17 year-old sister and her friends still use Facebook every day. Snapchat seems to be growing in popularity though.
wslh 13y ago
I came up with a different conclusion from the same study: there are only seven countries in the world.
joshferg 13y ago
No statistics on the sourced article, just a bunch of anthropologists' interviews with teenagers that cannot simply explain the whole of this situation. Eternal September has seemed to sweep HN with this garbage somehow making it to the top.
- elag 13y ago
  That's what qualitative research is. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio... &c".
ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
Yeah, a "Real Name Policy" will do that to your startup. When everything you say has your name and photo next to it you're much less likely to say anything. Every single one of your personal opinions offends someone or is in disagreement with someone out there and it's only a matter of time before they discover it and discover you. In this case kids' personal lives were being revealed in front of their parents+teachers+bosses and everyone else that's now on facebook. Maybe if Facebook changed over to pseudonyms and was more transparent with the data they collected on everyone, people wouldn't have so much to worry about.
- treenyc 13y ago
  I stop using facebook. Why don't people just stop talking about facebook and just use diaspora.
TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
I am a seventeen-year-old girl. I have no idea eat they're on about. Everyone here uses Facebook. It is not dead nor dying.
- logicallee 13y ago
  Maybe that's just what they told the researchers, because they didn't want to add them or explain why not! "nah I don't use it."
- shubhamjain 13y ago
  About three years ago, FB was the 'thing' for teenagers. I mean when smartphones were less powerful, kids would be logged into facebook on their PCs for hours each day, browsing through photos, chatting with their friends, playing stupid games. Today I see, they are more hooked into smartphones for everything it was famous for. Of course, Facebook is still good for being connected to acquaintances, colleagues but its just not on everybody's lips as it used to be. I won't imply FB would a history in any near time but the social market itself is so dynamic, that its just a matter of time when you are replaced by a better alternative.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
    Right. Most people use FB on their phones now, I think, while previously on PCs. And I think people probably don't use it as much as they did, but it's still widely used.
- keithpeter 13y ago
  I teach in a Further Education College in the UK. FB seems pretty popular with the 16-19 students there as well, along with BBM on old Blackberries using the free wifi we provide! Have a good holiday all
- r0h1n 13y ago
  I'm a 37 year old (jeez, typing that suddenly made me feel much, much older) male. I went from being an early, avid, oversharing Facebook user to quitting it 6 months back. But that's just what it is. Two anecdotal examples which by themselves neither prove nor disprove anything.
awjr 13y ago
Are teenagers just selecting the tool that is right for them? Facebook has this horrible habit of trying to work out what you would most like to see in your feed. It's exceptionally transient. Teenagers are moving to Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp because they do a better specific job. Switching between apps isn't hard. However FB is very good for event organisation or even a cheap meetup.com alternative. Of note I find twitter etc less invasive. When you look at the FB app permissions it really really wants to know pretty much everything that is going on in your phone.
- brazzy 13y ago
  > Facebook has this horrible habit of trying to work out what you would most like to see in your feed. It's exceptionally transient. That's a feature introduced not long ago to reduce transience - feeds were dominated by chatty users and apps, everything else got drowned out. IMO it's a hugely important and useful feature that any other feed-based service must replicate unless chooses to be completely transient, i.e. twitter. Facebook is not transient at all - individual timelines still contain everything, and even the feed does not, in my experience, change retroactively.
  - awjr 13y ago
    I may be unaware of an advanced search facility on FB, but twitter really shines https://twitter.com/search-advanced https://twitter.com/search-advanced I find Twitter to be better at connecting to people you admire and are involved in your industry. I can see a similar situation for teenagers. I help organise a regular monthly event. I PR through twitter but host an event through a Facebook group. Articles/photos/stories are discussed in detail through the FB group, but they are sourced through twitter. Twitter gives you the ability to 'focus' an account (I have two, my personal and the event one) towards the type of people/organisations that are of interested for the specified account. In fact it's a very very good way of filtering out noise. You only bring articles to the FB group that would get the people talking. FB is way too vague and generally is just part of me wasting 5 minutes to be entertained. Twitter I use to try and get a better understanding of the world I live in and to learn from people I admire.
quattrofan 13y ago
Is anyone surprised?
pastpartisan 13y ago
And yet Facebook stock keeps going up everyday Probably because kids are using instagram which is also owned by facebook, so either way facebook wins. Facebook is becoming increasingly popular among the middle aged and this also is the most profitable demographic.
sifarat 13y ago
Social networking overall has run its course. below are the phases it has gone through like everything else. 1. Initial Launch: OMG! Cool. Signup 2. More people Jump in, it becomes even more exciting. 3. Everyone starts using it. 4. Eventually, excitement starts to fade away. 5. It becomes boring. 6. People's addiction eventually starts to decline. 7. People totally lose their interest. 8. Eventually, it becomes a ghost town. End. Google+ even couldn’t pass through the 2nd phase.
- brazzy 13y ago
  The steps from 4 to 7 seems to me not to be at all inevitable. Facebook provides pretty solid and sustainable value in allowing you to keep in touch with people you know. It does not require excitement, hype and obsession for that. Of course, if usage intensity declines, so does revenue (but also costs).
  - sifarat 13y ago
    the advantage or significance of facebook is that, it has been able to prolonged these phases.
- vdaniuk 13y ago
  Citation needed. Please provide facts that prove social networking overall has run its course. Social networking overall is strong as ever in my opinion but I'm ready to have my views challenged.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- rplnt 13y ago
  That's not it. People still use facebook and will for a long time. It's just that next generation won't use what the old one used. Also it's not about social network or not, it's about some method of communication/sharing/organizing. It's not about being interesting/boring. It's not a game as you (and many other people - especially those verbal about quiting these services) try to portray it. All that matters is that you have contacts there. As others mentioned, great example is ICQ. Many people still use it. Not much of new people, but people who got to it in the late 90s and early 00s.
arethuza 13y ago
I asked my teenage son (~15) about what he and his friends were using and his answer surprised me - he said anyone using Facebook was "weird" as "it's for old people" (direct quotes). This surprised me as he (and everyone he knows) have been ultra keen Facebook users for the last few years. He's not really into tech apart from game playing and socializing. SnapChat and a bit of SMS are apparently what he uses these days.
- bluedino 13y ago
  I heard the exact same thing from a group of kids over at a friends for a slumber party. Even his own son said "I only keep it to talk to mom"
mainguy 13y ago
I was trying to figure out how and why someone would bury Facebook and a bunch of UK teenagers...but now I get it...
k_kelly 13y ago
I feel like teens are the stick used to beat Facebook because they've never really been the ones who fanatically used it. This study seems to constantly come out saying teens are using x messenger app. Facebook isn't a messaging system like Snapchat or WhatsApp. It's a repo for social contacts and experiences, which is why it has a symbiotic relationship with messaging apps (people sent texts while Facebook was only on the web! Facebook is losing ground to texts!). Of the four Twitter and Instagram are the competitors but both lack the walled garden that Facebook offers. Facebook for all it's privacy concerns makes these look like a safe-house. Instagram treads the role of messaging app and social network best, and is owned by Facebook and is deeply integrated. That doesn't seem like a dead and buried social network.
jkscm 13y ago
Can someone find quantitative information? The fact that teenagers say that they use cooler apps like Snapchat or instagram does not imply that Facebook has to loose. Maybe they spent more time on their smartphones overall or they spend less time with older media like TV and radio?
denzil_correa 13y ago
The original article is two links from the OP link. Original Link - http://theconversation.com/facebooks-so-uncool-but-its-morphing-into-a-different-beast-21548 http://theconversation.com/facebooks-so-uncool-but-its-morph... There are more details their blog though - http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/social-networking/ http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/social-networking/
yosoyzenitram 13y ago
In Spain this is happening the reverse way: the first Spanish social network (Tuenti), which was the most popular amongst teenagers, is dying and being buried due to the loss of users to the more feature-grown Facebook. Tuenti was bought by Telefónica and basically I think they're going to end up pivoting to be only the only thing that is still profitable for them (a MVNO called Tuenti Móvil).
mathattack 13y ago
It seems like different tools for different purposes. Once grandma and potential emitters got on Facebook it lost its edge, if not it's use. It's more about PG sharing. I find that 5% of my friends dominate the feed. I'm not sure if it's the algorithm, or that they are narcissists. Twitter seems more event and business promotion oriented / maybe persona oriented. Snapchat is the one to send bad stuff that your parents and teachers won't find out about.
alan_cx 13y ago
Its not 'dead' or 'not dead', its that they now use other sites and services too, resulting in less time with facebook exclusively. A few years ago its was almost 100% FB. Now its just one of many services they use. Also think there might be a historic thing going on where FB was designed for large screen PCs, other services are more targeted at mobile, and FB has had to catch up with that, but lost out to some others along the way, as it were. I think BB still feels heavy, the other services feel light. I just think many people now use FB for what it was originally for. But, its now a little off putting becuase its clogged up with other features that other sites just do better.
crag 13y ago
God.. every year I read some story about "Facebook is dead because" blah, blah, blah. Look you want to kill FB then create something. And please not another FB clone; we need something different. And better. It's like, when I lived in SFO, I could't throw a dead cat without hitting someone who wrote the "next greatest social network", and yet FB is still here.
- kenkam 13y ago
  I don't see how that article talks about the FB killer. It merely states that it has observed UK teenagers moving away from Facebook and cites various reasons, one of them being parents encouraging the use of FB. Maybe a FB killer is an app made for parents that persuades them to encourage their kids to use FB?
davidgerard 13y ago
... I had to explain to our older teen, who lives on Facebook, what Twitter was. ("It's where middle-aged Guardian readers post outrageous articles from the Guardian for other middle-aged Guardian readers to be outraged about and post their outrage at the Guardian on Twitter. For Guardian readers, middle age starts at fifteen.")
samweinberg 13y ago
Facebook is basically dead and buried with kids my age too, at least in my area. It's really only used for messaging and event planning now. Most teens are on Twitter and Snapchat. Although not as much as there used to be, there are still a lot of people on Instagram too. I don't think you can confidently say that "x is dead" and have it be true for everyone in a certain age group in every area. It's a case-by-case type of thing.
MLR 13y ago
I think if a new social network came out, that had a bare bones layout, and just had Events/Pages/Friends then that would come in and dominate again. As soon as they start trying to be too big and do too much they lose their edge.
- untilHellbanned 13y ago
  doubt it
yalogin 13y ago
Teenagers are moving to Twitter? Really? Snapchat and whatsapp I can understand. But Twitter?
muratmutlu 13y ago
"In answer we have 15 months research @ 9 towns around the world = 1000 insights." That's not a very big group for the UK to make such a statement
pasbesoin 13y ago
I learned this over a decade ago managing one of those old-fashioned "forums". A decent-sized and long lived one. The secret to overall satisfaction (there will always be outliers) is a policy and approach of "opt-in". We never tried to "break" anonymity. As people became comfortable with each other, they often shared personal contact information (mostly, privately). And because they were otherwise anonymous, they felt comfortable sharing and discussing matters they otherwise would not have. To everyone's benefit. We had limits, and these were stated up front, and forum members felt invested in pointing them out and helping to enforce them (e.g. reporting serious violations) when necessary. Forum members also had input to the policy, both in ongoing suggestions as well as during periodic, publicly announced reviews. People participated as much, or as little, as they wanted to. And they shared, both publicly and privately, what they wanted to. Private and orthogonal communication channels were, well, if not overtly encouraged, then certainly not discouraged -- although we would caution people about sharing too much too quickly. Think about it. Take your time. "Opt in" to what you are comfortable with. We ended up with a very loyal and long-standing community. And a significantly sized one, that did literally span the globe. Now, from a mass commercial perspective, perhaps many people will find difficulty in how such policy and site is supposed to work, financially. And I'm not saying I have all the answers to that. Nonetheless, "opt-in" still nags at me as the way to go. When Facebook was more "opt-in", it was the hotness. Size and Grandma being on it (not to mention your parents -- argh!) may be one thing -- one deterrent. But the loss of "opt-in", and an increasingly panopticon feel? That to me seems far worse. Facebook should be improving opt-in and the ability to segregate into communities that have their own degrees of privacy. Encourage people to meet and share -- on their own terms. Provide the venue. Don't force it on them.
edh649 13y ago
I'm a teenager in the UK and Facebook has most certainly not died. it seems to me that people do use it less now but that may just be due to growing up (no more farmville etc.). However, Facebook is still heavily used for setting up events, sharing photos, and messaging people. The reason why facebook is so good at all of these things? Because everyone has Facebook. If I need to ask a friend something, There are several ways to ask them: - Text: Might not have their number, have to pay, it's only available on their phone, not on their computer - WhatsApp (or similar): They may not have it, I may not be their contact, only available on their phones - SnapChat: Hard to hold a conversation with someone - Instagram: Great for sharing photos, not for communicating - Facebook: Am Friends with everyone I will need to contact. Easy to use. They receive it on their phone and computer (more likely to see it sooner). Free. Facebook may lose some interest from people but I'm sure it will be around for a long time, at least until the large majority of people have moved to another platform where they can communicate
- hgh 13y ago
  I find it pretty interesting that email isn't even an option in that list.
  - AlecSchueler 13y ago
    I've only ever sent maybe three or four social emails. Email is only for signing up to things, sending a CV or printing boarding passes etc.
  - edh649 13y ago
    Opps, Forgot that: that's how irrelevant it's become. Email is just for signing up for things and for 'professional' communication (e.g. job offers, work placements, to teachers etc.). I think I only have about 5 of my friends email addresses, mainly just because sometimes I'll need to CC them into something.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
toupeira 13y ago
Facebook just seems broken to me. Out of my 170 friends the news feed only shows me 4-5 posts per day, and only going back 4-5 days for a boring total of about 20 posts. I'm pretty sure there's more content, but Facebook doesn't seem to want me to see it.
enraged_camel 13y ago
>>Where once parents worried about their children joining Facebook, the children now say it is their family that insists they stay there to post about their lives. This is absolutely the case for me. I was born and raised in Turkey and I currently live in LA. I attempted to quit Facebook several times, only to come back when my mom insisted that she felt disconnected from me when my status updates stopped.

120 points by r0h1n 13y ago

dimfisch 13y ago

It's amazing how fast the world moves on.

elnate 13y ago
One age group in one country isn't exactly 'moved on' yet. Waning yes, but still a force to be reckoned with.
- singingfish 13y ago
  pretty much seems that way in australia as well. source: father of 14 year old.
  - 69c69b 13y ago
    I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that one. Basically all social events are organised on Facebook with my friends because of how simple it is to do so and everyone uses it, general purpose chatting is also done on facebook to save credit Source: 17 year old Australian
    - singingfish 13y ago
      There's a fair difference between a 14 and a 17 year old.
- jrs99 13y ago
  myspace was a force to be reckoned with.
  - Grue3 13y ago
    Myspace was a site for teenagers. Facebook isn't. Old people don't give a crap about what the newest fad of the week is.
    - jrs99 13y ago
      but old people die.
      - brazzy 13y ago
        but young people turn into old people - and, at the moment, at a faster rate than old people are dying.
    - timthorn 13y ago
      Friends Reunited was most certainly not a site for teenagers, but suffered the same fate.
- antr 13y ago
  "one country" that has a high GDP per capita, sweet-spot demographics for advertisers, and a high ad spend budget by marketers, that allows FB to generate considerable revenues. this is not just a "warning sign".
oesmith 13y ago
Don't forget, those teenagers entire families are now on Facebook. I concede that the actions of teenagers might be an indicator of what's to come, but the world has hardly 'moved on' yet.

thejosh 13y ago

There is always going to be one form of online chat that people will use, no matter the other websites. ICQ / MSN / FB Chat / WhatsApp / whatever it is in the future teens will use it and love it. I loved ICQ & MSN growing up, I can't wait to see what comes in the next 10 years.

justincormack 13y ago
Its amazing how badly google lost on this, from a great start.

nly 13y ago

The Facebook app is just a portal to the website. Apps that appeared as apps first seem to be a bit more of sanctuary, as I'm pretty sure mums and dads everywhere haven't quite yet mastered the whole app concept. My parents for instance still have feature phones despite using Facebook. Personally, I'm glad to see apps that are primarily used for conversation, rather than obsessing about what our 'friends' are doing every and any minute of the day, are becoming more popular. For me Facebook has wholly been replaced by Twitter and Whatsapp, and I've noticed my younger cousins are using BBM and Skype.

wingerlang 13y ago
In asia it seems that the *most popular messengers also includes some form of "timeline". Malaysia: WhatsApp Thailand (and Japan I think): Line But I guess they are still MOSTLY used for the direct chatting.

pikachu_is_cool 13y ago

WOW! Teenagers are moving away from Facebook? That's SHOCKING news. Fresh stuff, I had no idea Twitter and Whatsapp are also social networks! And I didn't know Facebook could be in competition with itself (Instagram). And it's not like I read the exact same article, except with actual content, two months ago. Definitely deserves to be on the front page of HN.

SurfScore 13y ago

I've found myself using Facebook less and less the older I get. I used it every day in high school, relatively often in college, and barely go on anymore. I have an account simply because I have to. Its always changing on me, there's a bunch of new stuff that I have no idea how to use, and my news feed is a bunch of annoying gibberish that I don't care about and don't feel like spending the time to improve. I'm not sure if I'm the norm or not, but if they're starting to lose the age segment I personally was most active in, that can't be a good thing. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years. On the plus side for Facebook, they own Instagram, one of the things said to be gaining the market they are losing, so they can still reach it. However, it remains to be seen how well they can monetize Instagram.

brazzy 13y ago

So, Facebook isn't anymore a cool new thing teenagers obsess about. Wowzers!! Does that really surprise anyone? It's not exactly a sustainable niche, kinda by definition. The real question is whether those teenagers, once grown up and less interested in beingt cool and different from their parents, will start seeing value in what Facebook offers, i.e. whether network effects in social media are cross-generational. I suspect so, since generations are not in fact discrete.

nknighthb 13y ago

I see no numbers anywhere. Just breathless rhetoric labelled "insights". Where is the evidence?

eftpotrm 13y ago

I'm in the UK and do voluntary work with teenagers. While I can't at all say my sample is representative or that I've I polled them to check, my experience is that it definitely isn't dead and buried; these teenagers definitely still use it, and in ways that don't suggest it's just to pander to their parents. Anecdote not data I know, but the headline conclusion sounds over-broad to me.

melling 13y ago
Yep, 2014 is looking like it's going to be the year of "FACEBOOK IS DEAD" articles. Just 9 days ago we discussed the end of the Facebook era. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6917392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6917392 Personally, I'm curious why we care that much? Is there some benefit to knowing the fate of Facebook? Are we shorting the stock?
- aragot 13y ago
  ... and it's not the first one. As there are websites generating content in facebook format, such as jokes, philosophical quotes and personality quizzes, ... there seem to be websites generating content fitting HN. "Facebook", "teenagers" and "dead" is basically the magic receipe to climb up the newsfeed, now that NSA articles are downgraded by default on HN. Should we attempt to detect and bury HN submissions about teenagers leaving facebook?
- LeeHunter 13y ago
  "Is there some benefit to knowing the fate of Facebook?" If you care about social media in general then yes, the fate of the world's largest social media platform is tremendously important. If your life or business doesn't intersect much with social media then, no.
  - melling 13y ago
    Companies come and go in both existence and importance. If Facebook goes away tomorrow, something will take its place. If your business is social media, wouldn't it be better to discuss how to improve it, new features, etc.? Where can a small company create a viable business?

spobin 13y ago

I'm in the UK and my 17 year-old sister and her friends still use Facebook every day. Snapchat seems to be growing in popularity though.

wslh 13y ago

I came up with a different conclusion from the same study: there are only seven countries in the world.

joshferg 13y ago

No statistics on the sourced article, just a bunch of anthropologists' interviews with teenagers that cannot simply explain the whole of this situation. Eternal September has seemed to sweep HN with this garbage somehow making it to the top.

elag 13y ago
That's what qualitative research is. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio... &c".

ChrisNorstrom 13y ago

Yeah, a "Real Name Policy" will do that to your startup. When everything you say has your name and photo next to it you're much less likely to say anything. Every single one of your personal opinions offends someone or is in disagreement with someone out there and it's only a matter of time before they discover it and discover you. In this case kids' personal lives were being revealed in front of their parents+teachers+bosses and everyone else that's now on facebook. Maybe if Facebook changed over to pseudonyms and was more transparent with the data they collected on everyone, people wouldn't have so much to worry about.

treenyc 13y ago
I stop using facebook. Why don't people just stop talking about facebook and just use diaspora.

TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago

I am a seventeen-year-old girl. I have no idea eat they're on about. Everyone here uses Facebook. It is not dead nor dying.

logicallee 13y ago
Maybe that's just what they told the researchers, because they didn't want to add them or explain why not! "nah I don't use it."
shubhamjain 13y ago
About three years ago, FB was the 'thing' for teenagers. I mean when smartphones were less powerful, kids would be logged into facebook on their PCs for hours each day, browsing through photos, chatting with their friends, playing stupid games. Today I see, they are more hooked into smartphones for everything it was famous for. Of course, Facebook is still good for being connected to acquaintances, colleagues but its just not on everybody's lips as it used to be. I won't imply FB would a history in any near time but the social market itself is so dynamic, that its just a matter of time when you are replaced by a better alternative.
- TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
  Right. Most people use FB on their phones now, I think, while previously on PCs. And I think people probably don't use it as much as they did, but it's still widely used.
keithpeter 13y ago
I teach in a Further Education College in the UK. FB seems pretty popular with the 16-19 students there as well, along with BBM on old Blackberries using the free wifi we provide! Have a good holiday all
r0h1n 13y ago
I'm a 37 year old (jeez, typing that suddenly made me feel much, much older) male. I went from being an early, avid, oversharing Facebook user to quitting it 6 months back. But that's just what it is. Two anecdotal examples which by themselves neither prove nor disprove anything.

awjr 13y ago

Are teenagers just selecting the tool that is right for them? Facebook has this horrible habit of trying to work out what you would most like to see in your feed. It's exceptionally transient. Teenagers are moving to Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp because they do a better specific job. Switching between apps isn't hard. However FB is very good for event organisation or even a cheap meetup.com alternative. Of note I find twitter etc less invasive. When you look at the FB app permissions it really really wants to know pretty much everything that is going on in your phone.

brazzy 13y ago
> Facebook has this horrible habit of trying to work out what you would most like to see in your feed. It's exceptionally transient. That's a feature introduced not long ago to reduce transience - feeds were dominated by chatty users and apps, everything else got drowned out. IMO it's a hugely important and useful feature that any other feed-based service must replicate unless chooses to be completely transient, i.e. twitter. Facebook is not transient at all - individual timelines still contain everything, and even the feed does not, in my experience, change retroactively.
- awjr 13y ago
  I may be unaware of an advanced search facility on FB, but twitter really shines https://twitter.com/search-advanced https://twitter.com/search-advanced I find Twitter to be better at connecting to people you admire and are involved in your industry. I can see a similar situation for teenagers. I help organise a regular monthly event. I PR through twitter but host an event through a Facebook group. Articles/photos/stories are discussed in detail through the FB group, but they are sourced through twitter. Twitter gives you the ability to 'focus' an account (I have two, my personal and the event one) towards the type of people/organisations that are of interested for the specified account. In fact it's a very very good way of filtering out noise. You only bring articles to the FB group that would get the people talking. FB is way too vague and generally is just part of me wasting 5 minutes to be entertained. Twitter I use to try and get a better understanding of the world I live in and to learn from people I admire.

quattrofan 13y ago

Is anyone surprised?

pastpartisan 13y ago

And yet Facebook stock keeps going up everyday Probably because kids are using instagram which is also owned by facebook, so either way facebook wins. Facebook is becoming increasingly popular among the middle aged and this also is the most profitable demographic.

sifarat 13y ago

Social networking overall has run its course. below are the phases it has gone through like everything else. 1. Initial Launch: OMG! Cool. Signup 2. More people Jump in, it becomes even more exciting. 3. Everyone starts using it. 4. Eventually, excitement starts to fade away. 5. It becomes boring. 6. People's addiction eventually starts to decline. 7. People totally lose their interest. 8. Eventually, it becomes a ghost town. End. Google+ even couldn’t pass through the 2nd phase.

brazzy 13y ago
The steps from 4 to 7 seems to me not to be at all inevitable. Facebook provides pretty solid and sustainable value in allowing you to keep in touch with people you know. It does not require excitement, hype and obsession for that. Of course, if usage intensity declines, so does revenue (but also costs).
- sifarat 13y ago
  the advantage or significance of facebook is that, it has been able to prolonged these phases.
vdaniuk 13y ago
Citation needed. Please provide facts that prove social networking overall has run its course. Social networking overall is strong as ever in my opinion but I'm ready to have my views challenged.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
rplnt 13y ago
That's not it. People still use facebook and will for a long time. It's just that next generation won't use what the old one used. Also it's not about social network or not, it's about some method of communication/sharing/organizing. It's not about being interesting/boring. It's not a game as you (and many other people - especially those verbal about quiting these services) try to portray it. All that matters is that you have contacts there. As others mentioned, great example is ICQ. Many people still use it. Not much of new people, but people who got to it in the late 90s and early 00s.

arethuza 13y ago

I asked my teenage son (~15) about what he and his friends were using and his answer surprised me - he said anyone using Facebook was "weird" as "it's for old people" (direct quotes). This surprised me as he (and everyone he knows) have been ultra keen Facebook users for the last few years. He's not really into tech apart from game playing and socializing. SnapChat and a bit of SMS are apparently what he uses these days.

bluedino 13y ago
I heard the exact same thing from a group of kids over at a friends for a slumber party. Even his own son said "I only keep it to talk to mom"

mainguy 13y ago

I was trying to figure out how and why someone would bury Facebook and a bunch of UK teenagers...but now I get it...

k_kelly 13y ago

I feel like teens are the stick used to beat Facebook because they've never really been the ones who fanatically used it. This study seems to constantly come out saying teens are using x messenger app. Facebook isn't a messaging system like Snapchat or WhatsApp. It's a repo for social contacts and experiences, which is why it has a symbiotic relationship with messaging apps (people sent texts while Facebook was only on the web! Facebook is losing ground to texts!). Of the four Twitter and Instagram are the competitors but both lack the walled garden that Facebook offers. Facebook for all it's privacy concerns makes these look like a safe-house. Instagram treads the role of messaging app and social network best, and is owned by Facebook and is deeply integrated. That doesn't seem like a dead and buried social network.

jkscm 13y ago

Can someone find quantitative information? The fact that teenagers say that they use cooler apps like Snapchat or instagram does not imply that Facebook has to loose. Maybe they spent more time on their smartphones overall or they spend less time with older media like TV and radio?

denzil_correa 13y ago

The original article is two links from the OP link. Original Link - http://theconversation.com/facebooks-so-uncool-but-its-morphing-into-a-different-beast-21548 http://theconversation.com/facebooks-so-uncool-but-its-morph... There are more details their blog though - http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/social-networking/ http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/social-networking/

yosoyzenitram 13y ago

In Spain this is happening the reverse way: the first Spanish social network (Tuenti), which was the most popular amongst teenagers, is dying and being buried due to the loss of users to the more feature-grown Facebook. Tuenti was bought by Telefónica and basically I think they're going to end up pivoting to be only the only thing that is still profitable for them (a MVNO called Tuenti Móvil).

mathattack 13y ago

It seems like different tools for different purposes. Once grandma and potential emitters got on Facebook it lost its edge, if not it's use. It's more about PG sharing. I find that 5% of my friends dominate the feed. I'm not sure if it's the algorithm, or that they are narcissists. Twitter seems more event and business promotion oriented / maybe persona oriented. Snapchat is the one to send bad stuff that your parents and teachers won't find out about.

alan_cx 13y ago

Its not 'dead' or 'not dead', its that they now use other sites and services too, resulting in less time with facebook exclusively. A few years ago its was almost 100% FB. Now its just one of many services they use. Also think there might be a historic thing going on where FB was designed for large screen PCs, other services are more targeted at mobile, and FB has had to catch up with that, but lost out to some others along the way, as it were. I think BB still feels heavy, the other services feel light. I just think many people now use FB for what it was originally for. But, its now a little off putting becuase its clogged up with other features that other sites just do better.

crag 13y ago

God.. every year I read some story about "Facebook is dead because" blah, blah, blah. Look you want to kill FB then create something. And please not another FB clone; we need something different. And better. It's like, when I lived in SFO, I could't throw a dead cat without hitting someone who wrote the "next greatest social network", and yet FB is still here.

kenkam 13y ago
I don't see how that article talks about the FB killer. It merely states that it has observed UK teenagers moving away from Facebook and cites various reasons, one of them being parents encouraging the use of FB. Maybe a FB killer is an app made for parents that persuades them to encourage their kids to use FB?

davidgerard 13y ago

... I had to explain to our older teen, who lives on Facebook, what Twitter was. ("It's where middle-aged Guardian readers post outrageous articles from the Guardian for other middle-aged Guardian readers to be outraged about and post their outrage at the Guardian on Twitter. For Guardian readers, middle age starts at fifteen.")

samweinberg 13y ago

Facebook is basically dead and buried with kids my age too, at least in my area. It's really only used for messaging and event planning now. Most teens are on Twitter and Snapchat. Although not as much as there used to be, there are still a lot of people on Instagram too. I don't think you can confidently say that "x is dead" and have it be true for everyone in a certain age group in every area. It's a case-by-case type of thing.

MLR 13y ago

I think if a new social network came out, that had a bare bones layout, and just had Events/Pages/Friends then that would come in and dominate again. As soon as they start trying to be too big and do too much they lose their edge.

untilHellbanned 13y ago
doubt it

yalogin 13y ago

Teenagers are moving to Twitter? Really? Snapchat and whatsapp I can understand. But Twitter?

muratmutlu 13y ago

"In answer we have 15 months research @ 9 towns around the world = 1000 insights." That's not a very big group for the UK to make such a statement

pasbesoin 13y ago

I learned this over a decade ago managing one of those old-fashioned "forums". A decent-sized and long lived one. The secret to overall satisfaction (there will always be outliers) is a policy and approach of "opt-in". We never tried to "break" anonymity. As people became comfortable with each other, they often shared personal contact information (mostly, privately). And because they were otherwise anonymous, they felt comfortable sharing and discussing matters they otherwise would not have. To everyone's benefit. We had limits, and these were stated up front, and forum members felt invested in pointing them out and helping to enforce them (e.g. reporting serious violations) when necessary. Forum members also had input to the policy, both in ongoing suggestions as well as during periodic, publicly announced reviews. People participated as much, or as little, as they wanted to. And they shared, both publicly and privately, what they wanted to. Private and orthogonal communication channels were, well, if not overtly encouraged, then certainly not discouraged -- although we would caution people about sharing too much too quickly. Think about it. Take your time. "Opt in" to what you are comfortable with. We ended up with a very loyal and long-standing community. And a significantly sized one, that did literally span the globe. Now, from a mass commercial perspective, perhaps many people will find difficulty in how such policy and site is supposed to work, financially. And I'm not saying I have all the answers to that. Nonetheless, "opt-in" still nags at me as the way to go. When Facebook was more "opt-in", it was the hotness. Size and Grandma being on it (not to mention your parents -- argh!) may be one thing -- one deterrent. But the loss of "opt-in", and an increasingly panopticon feel? That to me seems far worse. Facebook should be improving opt-in and the ability to segregate into communities that have their own degrees of privacy. Encourage people to meet and share -- on their own terms. Provide the venue. Don't force it on them.

edh649 13y ago

I'm a teenager in the UK and Facebook has most certainly not died. it seems to me that people do use it less now but that may just be due to growing up (no more farmville etc.). However, Facebook is still heavily used for setting up events, sharing photos, and messaging people. The reason why facebook is so good at all of these things? Because everyone has Facebook. If I need to ask a friend something, There are several ways to ask them: - Text: Might not have their number, have to pay, it's only available on their phone, not on their computer - WhatsApp (or similar): They may not have it, I may not be their contact, only available on their phones - SnapChat: Hard to hold a conversation with someone - Instagram: Great for sharing photos, not for communicating - Facebook: Am Friends with everyone I will need to contact. Easy to use. They receive it on their phone and computer (more likely to see it sooner). Free. Facebook may lose some interest from people but I'm sure it will be around for a long time, at least until the large majority of people have moved to another platform where they can communicate

hgh 13y ago
I find it pretty interesting that email isn't even an option in that list.
- AlecSchueler 13y ago
  I've only ever sent maybe three or four social emails. Email is only for signing up to things, sending a CV or printing boarding passes etc.
- edh649 13y ago
  Opps, Forgot that: that's how irrelevant it's become. Email is just for signing up for things and for 'professional' communication (e.g. job offers, work placements, to teachers etc.). I think I only have about 5 of my friends email addresses, mainly just because sometimes I'll need to CC them into something.

deleted 13y ago

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toupeira 13y ago

Facebook just seems broken to me. Out of my 170 friends the news feed only shows me 4-5 posts per day, and only going back 4-5 days for a boring total of about 20 posts. I'm pretty sure there's more content, but Facebook doesn't seem to want me to see it.

enraged_camel 13y ago

>>Where once parents worried about their children joining Facebook, the children now say it is their family that insists they stay there to post about their lives. This is absolutely the case for me. I was born and raised in Turkey and I currently live in LA. I attempted to quit Facebook several times, only to come back when my mom insisted that she felt disconnected from me when my status updates stopped.