In January, Anikha Surendran, a Malayali teen actor, made a controversial comment about Facebook users. “Who uses Facebook except for some uncles,” she asked while answering an interviewer’s question about her favourite social media platform. Surendran was trolled mercilessly on social media for her impromptu response. However, a recent study by Pew Research Centre on American teenagers proves that teens are, in fact, abandoning Facebook.
The study found a rapidly declining trend in the number of teen Facebook users over the last few years: In 2014-15, 71 per cent of Facebook users were teens; in 2022, it is only 32 per cent. YouTube is the platform used by most teens (95 per cent ), followed by TikTok (67 per cent), Instagram (62 per cent) and Snapchat (59 per cent).
The Pew findings are consistent with Facebook’s internal reports leaked by whistle-blower Frances Haugen in 2021. The reports stated that “most young adults perceive Facebook as a place for people in their 40s and 50s”. If this trend of an ageing user base continues, it will make a huge hole in Facebook’s ad revenue—which constitutes the bulk of its overall revenue—in the coming years.