Facebook is losing users among the young teen demographic according to recent findings. A blogger had to admit his mistake when he argued with a 13-year-old that her peers are still using the social media site as much as ever.
Teenager Ruby Karp had written a blog post on Mashable a couple of months ago stating that her friends hardly use Facebook any more. After the post went viral, journalists everywhere started drawing conclusions about the decline of users on Mark Zuckerberg’s site. A blogger on Slate went the other way with his conclusions, stating that the words of a young teen were not conclusive proof.
It is worth stating at this point that Mark Zuckerberg himself denies that Facebook is seeing any decline in users among Ruby Karp’s age group. However, he may not be looking at all of the facts at hand, and trying to defend Facebook as the most popular site available around the world.
There is a reason why Facebook took over the user base of the ailing MySpace a few years back. One possible reason was MySpace blocking certain website material over potential virus usage, causing users to migrate to the more media-friendly Facebook . There was also the increasingly annoying timeline that left almost nothing private (that sounds familiar).
The idea that Facebook is losing users among young teens should be alarming. Young teens are the most likely demographic to keep the site going well into the next decade, and if only the older members stick around, there could be yet another mass migration.
Change is inevitable, and even though Facebook appears to be embracing it with regular updates like Graph Search and Messenger mobile apps, the social media site could be finding itself facing the same fate as MySpace . Mark Zuckerberg could end up being the next Tom Anderson.
The question is what website Facebook is losing users to as less and less young teens are using it. Only time will tell if Instagram or Twitter is taking over, but there is no need to worry yet. Facebook is still going strong for now.
