
Teenagers say goodbye to Facebook and hello to messenger apps - qsymmachus
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/10/teenagers-messenger-apps-facebook-exodus
======
rayiner
Of course teens are leaving Facebook. I'm pushing 30 and use Facebook to share
pictures of my kid with my parents and my wife's parents and my wife's
grandmother (all of whom are active on Facebook). If I were a teenager, I
wouldn't use it with all that parental oversight.

If there wasn't all this youth worship in Silicon Valley, nobody would see
this as a problem for Facebook. We have a lot more disposable income than
teenagers do.

~~~
jobu
"We have a lot more disposable income than teenagers do."

That's arguable. Most people I know with teenagers would say their kids have
more influence on family spending than they do.

For me personally, years of barely scraping by have left me with anxiety and
guilt anytime I spend money on frivolous things. My kids on the other hand
seem to have no issue spending their allowance on movies, toys, and shitty
little trinkets. I'm not sure how to instill a sense of frugality without
letting them go hungry for a while.

~~~
GuiA
My parents never gave us an allowance. If we wanted to go to the movies with a
friend, or if there was a book I wanted, they'd pay for it (within reasonable
limits)- but no allowance.

The only cash I got was from grandparents for birthday/christmas, or doing
yard work. But my main hobby was reading, so I just went to the library and
never did any yard work as I didn't need the money.

As a teenager it slightly irritated me, when I saw some of my friends whose
parents gave them 20 euros a week or w/e- but now as an adult I live as
frugally as one can live as an engineer in the bay area (I still eat out way
too much, silly social pressure) and am glad my parents did it that way.

~~~
smileysteve
As you indicate, you were the minority. Teens are perhaps one of the most
valuable consumer markets.

~~~
GuiA
Yup, I realize that. OP was sharing his interrogations about how he could best
instill a sense of frugality in his kids, so I thought I'd give him an
additional data point :)

------
jusben1369
Watching this with my emerging teenagers. Their biggest complaint is that FB
is complicated. They are super comfortable using stand alone apps for single
use tasks. FB won't let them double tap a screen to love. It moves things
around so they're out of chronological order. It all drives them nuts. Plus
it's true that Uncles and Grandparent's comment and that freaks them out.

~~~
seiji
_FB won 't let them double tap a screen to love. _

Does that mean something? Is there a new app you double tape on things to
"love" them instead of "like" them?

~~~
jusben1369
Instagram heart

~~~
seiji
What's the full progression of vapid casual enthusiasm?

Like -> Love -> (Have Sex With) -> (Worship as The One True God) -> (Idealize
as The Genius Successor of Steve Jobs) -> (Give Read/Write Access to My Bank
Accounts) -> (Grant my Power of Attorney To) -> (Dissolve Myself and Transfer
My Full Agency as a Human To)

~~~
breakall
Where does "digg" fall in that?? ;-)

------
elorant
May I ask why is there so much fuss about youngsters? Yes, they will be the
consumers of tomorrow but how about the consumers of today? I’m in my early
40s I earn a lot and I spend a lot. Plus I have my interests pretty fixed. Why
aren’t the companies drooling to get my attention instead?

~~~
carbocation
> Plus I have my interests pretty fixed. Why aren’t the companies drooling to
> get my attention instead?

Couldn't " _Plus I have my interests pretty fixed._ " be the answer to that
question?

~~~
VLM
That can be read multiple ways, in that even the worlds dumbest advertising /
spyware network should be able to easily figure out I'm into hard sci fi and
have been into hard sci fi for a long time and probably be into hard sci fi
for quite awhile, such as the financially precious immediate future where I
will almost certainly drop some $$$ on sci fi books. I'm an easy sell, I know
what I like, it should NOT be hard for advertisers to figure it out, I want to
spend money on it, and I've got plenty of money. But nobody cares. You don't
get PR by making money, only by getting eyeballs and accounts.

On the other hand, watching my own kids, its star wars today, gone tomorrow.
Minecraft today, gone tomorrow. Lego today, gone tomorrow. Even if you could
track my son and accurately predict his current interests, knowing that he WAS
really into star wars a year ago is pretty much financially useless given that
he seems to be into lego branded cartoons right now, although next year both
will be forgotten in favor of something else.

~~~
dingaling
I think your example of your kids' interests is exactly why that demographic
is seen as so valuable for advertising.

One poster has a middle-aged interest in hard sci-fi; for $x advertising
allocation per individual it's going to be difficult to shift his interests.
The same $x applied to teenagers year after year 'flips' them from one
revenue-generating interest to another. And sets them up, the advertisers
hope, for a non-niche middle-aged interest.

------
danso
From the OP's closing sentence:

> _But there is little doubt that millions of teens will use these apps more
> and more, and older demographics will eventually join them. There 's a good
> chance that will continue to be at the expense of Facebook._

Wow, that's quite the compelling evidence...the Guardian has "little doubt"!

Another great data point:

> _The roll-out is still in its infancy, but after one music streaming service
> in the Middle East added the WhatsApp sharing button, its was surprised to
> find its users sharing 50% more songs via WhatsApp than Facebook._

The "one music streaming service in the Middle East" that apparently is so
popular it doesn't need to be named! Of course, the above statement could also
be true if the startup's users previously shared one song on Facebook and have
shared 2 on Whatsapp, but who's counting?

~~~
_mulder_
You sound like you disagree with their conclusions? Or do you just not like
the Guardian?

Either way, it would be more interesting to discuss your own opinions

~~~
danso
I can't disagree with their conclusions because such specious evidence is used
to back them up, cherry-picking non-sequiturs from various agencies and
analysts to support a hypothesis that has been run into the ground since FB's
IPO. Mostly, I'm just annoyed that an article with this theme has popped up
again, even though it was discussed on HN just a couple days ago, and provides
no real insight except: Yep, kids are trying things out. That's not a bad
thing to ponder, but to ponder it in several different threads within the same
weekend? Kind of annoying.

------
27182818284
There is something that I don't see mentioned too often in articles: Teenagers
don't just leave Facebook entirely, they just use it differently. So they'll
check Facebook from time to time and possibly have an account, but do more and
more interactions with messenger apps with their friends. So I see high school
students using Facebook one way, because parents and grandparents are on it,
and then using apps for the _primary_ communication with friends. In that
sense they aren't leaving as much as they are changing how they use it.

>When people set up events and get-togethers on Facebook, West and her
boyfriend tend to reply on WhatsApp instead because...

This article actually mentions it. That's exactly what I've seen happen.
Facebook is _still_ used, but it is used differently.

~~~
x0054
Occasional use is also unprofitable use for FB.

------
newsmaster
Funny, I finally took the plunge too just the other day and I'm not a teen.
Deleted everything, my whole account, every post, every photo, every tag,
every poke, after I downloaded a copy of my stuff of course. But it was not
easy task, oh no! They deliberately make it difficult to delete things! The
only way is manually one by one, but its worth it. Finally FB free.

My reasons? Well it got really annoying how it turned into a Womans Magazine!
Maybe I'm getting to that age when my friends are getting married and having
kids, but I'm really not interested in posts of babies, Miley Cyrus BS, Royal
Wedding nonsense etc... The list goes on and I only subscribed to reputable
news sources like the Times, Guardian.

------
philwelch
This sounds just like when I was a teenager, and everyone used AIM and ICQ.

~~~
phea
I think the takeaway from ICQ, AIM, MSN Messenger, Friendster, MySpace, etc is
that as soon as you start losing users, then it's over and there's no winning
users back. No matter how ubiquitous the service becomes in one's daily life.

------
smileysteve
Instagram / Tumblr / Bitstrips / Vine are indicative of a post-literate
society.

Users are avoiding processing words or concepts without imagery. The length of
the facebook post / tweet is decreasing, the content - or level of content are
suffering.

~~~
twic
I'm not sure i'd include Tumblr in that list: there's quite a bit of text on
Tumblr. I would include Twitter, though, which has functioned as the axe-man
in the death of literate discussion on the internet.

------
basicallydan
WhatsApp, iMessage, BBM, WeChat. They're all basically the same thing: Private
messaging services. Simple. I think ultimately that's all people want to do as
far as communication is concerned.

Not that any one service will win, but in order for any of them to do well, I
think they need to do the following:

\- Private messaging

\- Group messages

\- Images

\- Free, or very very cheap (I don't think anybody has really tested the idea
of charging a fee yet)

\- Cross-platform - leaving out BBM and iMessage

\- Some way of getting your address book from an _existing_ address book

\-- Web/desktop messaging. This isn't as important for the younger generation
but for many others it is.

The only reason BBM and iMessage are or were popular was because they came
pretty early and came with devices, but leaving friends out of conversations
because they use a different platform from you is damaging, which is why
WhatsApp became so popular, and why Facebook Messenger is so popular too.

~~~
10dpd
FYI: WhatsApp charged initially to cover their server costs.

~~~
w1ntermute
They still charge $0.99/yr after the first year (which is free).

~~~
basicallydan
Really? I haven't been charged yet!

~~~
Spittie
Some accounts got charged after a free year, some got charged after a "trial"
of many years, others get "gifted" a lifetime free service.

I'm in the last group, but I know that people that had to pay for WhatsApp.

------
allsystemsgo
Okay I'm probably one of the few devs on HN that actually likes Facebook. It
helps me communicate with my friends, parents, etc.

The only social network I like more than FB is Path.

Also, I do enjoy Facebooks "Messenger" app. I use it often.

~~~
cdcarter
The Messenger app is the only thing keeping me on Facebook. It's so great to
be able to communicate with people in a layer more formal than text but less
formal than email.

------
talles
I always loved instant messaging and hated those social networks that you have
to 'build yourself' there, like facebook nowadays or the old myspace.

I wanna hook up with ppl 'right now' and sustain only what really matters for
me; I don't wanna 'look this is my weekend', 'love u grandma', 'dude likes
that company', 'that rockband is awesome!'. Fuck.

In this sense I think twitter is genius. Feels like instant messaging and
still people get to know you in a 'lighter' way than facebook, without that
ego avalanche.

------
gdilla
are teens really going to socialize on a platform their parents use?
grandparents too! it would be like teens talking on the phone 30 years ago in
the living room with all your family about. nope.

------
obilgic
And we are back to MSN days, the mobile version though...

~~~
CSDude
I had a Windows Mobile 5 device, and it had MSN, at least I could write to my
buddies who are on computer via my mobile. I miss those days.

~~~
DrewRWx
IM-to-AIM bridge on my dumbphone.

------
Avalaxy
Honestly I don't see where all these articles about 'teens leaving facebook'
come from. I don't recognize the problem at all, I have 0 friends who are
leaving facebook. Admitted: I'm in my early 20s and so are most of my friends.
But except for whatsapp, messenger apps dont seem to be really popular here.
Is this something that is specific to the US?

~~~
antjanus
I'm in the US, here's what most of my friends are doing:

* saying "fuck it" to Facebook and using Instagram as their primary means of communication to "everyone" * using SnapChat or WhatsApp for other communication * people are actually starting to text.

When I look at my FB feed, I see the posts of 10-15 people max. I do check
people's pages just to make sure FB is not fucking me over (and sometimes it
is) but most of the time, people just drop off facebook. They're not "leaving"
but they're not using it.

~~~
ihuman
I keep seeing everyone say that people are communicating via Instagram. Can
someone explain how that is possible? It sounds extremely inconvenient, since
you can only post pictures and comment on said pictures.

~~~
timmaah
I'm a full-time traveler these days and my wife and I have probably met around
10 couples (actual offline meetings) via Instagram.

Facebook is more for people you know. (Filled with babies and relatives.. etc)
where Instagram has been great for finding like minded folks and following
along with their lives in short snippets.

As for how to communicate, Instagram has user tagging. Even in others
comments. Basically the same as sms messaging.

( My wife has more followers than me and I need to catch up:
[http://instagram.com/wandering_tim](http://instagram.com/wandering_tim) )

------
vinceguidry
The article seems to paint teenagers as Facebook's core and initial user base.
But I distinctly remember it being college students. Facebook seems to be just
as popular as it ever was with that crowd.

People may be getting misled by all the bullying stories and whatnot and
forgot that.

------
JVIDEL
How do I put this: teens aren't stupid, they know fb and others farm their
data for profit with little consideration for privacy.

So what they do? the same I would: leave and move to a better solution. I did
that all the time back in the day, but its not so easy today, why? because now
professional life demands you be part of whatever is work-trendy right now,
and that includes having an up-to-date profile on every damn social network
out there that isn't considered lame (cough _myspace_ )

It's bikeshedding to the max: did you build something truly innovative and
significative? _sorry brah it 's not on my feed! and your klout score is
really low, how can you be "in the know" if you barely tweet?_

------
mtgx
If Google is still serious about making a successful "social network" or
whatever is the next evolution of that, then they should buy Whatsapp. I'd
hate to see Facebook acquiring that one, too, like they did Instagram.

------
graeme
Whatsapp is not so useful unless you have internet access, correct? I
purposely avoid a data plan on my phone, so I haven't downloaded it. But I've
noticed more people asking me to use it to communicate with them.

I've been saying goodbye to Facebook too. Not because I've got a preferred
alternative, but because it's deliberately engineered to suck you into it. In
the short term, you spend more time on it. In the long term, you set up
systems to avoid visiting such a time sink. I never feel good after spending
time browsing Facebook.

~~~
_mulder_
I don't know what country you're from, but in most of Europe and the US (or
anywhere infact!) why would you not have a data plan for your phone? It's
quite difficult to find a phone plan without some form of data included, even
PAYG, and the price difference is often negligible.

Fair enough if using a fashionably retro 'dumb' phone and not a smart phone,
in which case you can't use WhatsApp anyway. If you are using a smart phone
without a data connection, then why? Surely you're missing out on all of the
benefits of owning a smart phone like maps and instant access to online
information, free messaging (WhatsApp anyone?).

If you just don't want a data plan, you can still use WiFi which would likely
cover you for 80% of the time (home and work).

~~~
nly
> It's quite difficult to find a phone plan without some form of data
> included, even PAYG

Citation needed. Pay and go plans in the UK still charge data by the megabyte.

~~~
koopajah
Yes but a lot of them come with 100 to 500MB free of data everytime you top-up

~~~
nly
Which is great if you're topping up by £10+ every month (because the data
allowance no doubt expires). If you're spending £10/month on credit, you may
as well get a rolling contract and get minutes, texts and unlimited data (Giff
Gaff -> £12)

I know plenty of people who aren't willing to pay that even though they use a
smartphone (mostly on wifi)... and 20p/megabyte for occasional or accidental
data use is just outrageous. Data prices are still a huge problem imo.

~~~
mcintyre1994
Have you checked out Three's 321 PAYG plan? If you're not using enough to
justify a rolling plan, it looks like the best bet - 3p/min, 2p/text, 1p/mb.
[http://www.three.co.uk/Store/Pay_As_You_Go_Price_Plans](http://www.three.co.uk/Store/Pay_As_You_Go_Price_Plans)

------
amolsarva
I've thought this for a while also - the big messaging apps like Whatsapp and
Line and Kakao and WeChat are SO BIG and growing so fast already.

More reason to think they might "beat" Facebook is that a) many are already
owned by Internet giants, i.e., have tons of resources to drive growth. WeChat
is owned by Tencent/QQ and Line by South Korea's Naver. And b) they are Asia-
centric where Facebook is weaker. Maybe these "international" players end up
beating Facebook on its home turf.

------
arkj
Simple messaging apps will always be attractive. Look at WhatsApp. Too many
features can also be a put off. Look where wave went. Simplicity wins,
always!!!

~~~
pestaa
I downvoted, because this is very short-sighted. IRC is simple. Blogs are
simple. They had their time but they didn't win. They should have, though.

~~~
_mulder_
IRC is not simple for the average Joe. WhatsApp is. Not quite sure how blogs
come into this. Have they had their time? They seem to be more popular (and
simpler) than ever.

------
HomebrewCC
Somehow I'm still quite sceptical about this. No one actually has the
statistics from Facebook's side to back this.

Stand-alone messaging apps are, according to the statistics, gaining traction
but these two can go side by side with Facebook pretty easily. The only thing
teenagers might be leaving according this article could be Facebook
Messenger...

~~~
adventured
It makes perfect sense.

There is a finite amount of time. Facebook acquired most of the non-business
social network space over the course of a particularly fast growing five or
six years.

For apps like Snapchat to exist, with their huge user base and usage numbers,
it must take time away from Facebook. The US market, as an example, is mostly
tapped out on saturation when it comes to social media reach.

The posts that would have gone to Facebook in 2005 by college students, are no
longer going to Facebook.

Who are Snapchat's users? The same users that typically adopt everything like
this, the youngest consumers: teens and early 20 somethings.

It follows that Facebook has to be losing time share among young consumers to
this phenomenon.

~~~
tedunangst
You are assuming that social network time is fixed.

------
phn
It seems to me that the fundamental difference is the "timing" and duration of
what you share online with your friends. Maybe it is more important what you
want to share _now_ and not so much save everything you share in the same
place to be seen for eternity. Interesting times I would say :)

------
10dpd
I think there is an opportunity for a startup to deliver a mobile messaging
platform for developers to build apps on.

Parse.com would be ideal, but unfortunately is far too expensive for this use-
case.

If this already exists, or someone would be interested in exploring this with
me, let me know.

~~~
jivid
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Kik Cards exactly what you're looking for?

~~~
chourobin
why hasn't Kik taken off like the other group messaging platforms? Its always
been the better application and it was the first of its kind.

~~~
newsmaster
I'm really not sure about the branding of it. You'd think it was a game or
flashcards or something in that region.

------
seiji
Normals only care about what's now and what's very soon next. Facebook
archives your online life drivel, but that has mostly zero value to normals.
They just want their next giggle, and they have zero loyalty to your pseudo-
corpornation.

~~~
lignuist
Probably those apps archive everything as well, but they just don't show it to
the users.

------
saadshamim
facebook has become, dare I say "ubiquitous", it's still the best way to keep
in touch with friends regardless of how often you use them, I use my fb maybe
once a week, but that one session allows me to catch up with what my friends
have been up to. I think messenger apps, including fb messenger, are great
when you're young and your social life is limited to only your clique, but I
don't see them replacing fb or even becoming a massive threat to fb

------
mambodog
_About 90% of the population of Brazil uses messaging apps_

I think you might wanna qualify that one a bit more.

~~~
seiji
90% of Brazil does everything. 90% uses Orkut. 90% produces electronic music.
90% lives on beaches. 90% lives in the rain forest. It's a big foreign place
where we can paste any number we want on it.

------
edwinnathaniel
BBY has a very good chance to become the FB of messenger if they can go
through the storm.

~~~
freakyterrorist
Their time is up. Too late now. I downloaded BBM when it launched and its so
far behind other services its laughable. The only way to add people was
through inane PIN codes or email. Even the most basic messaging apps today
have address book integration.

Such a waste of former market leadership

~~~
nly
Afaik the idea of BBM pin codes is you can exchange contact information
without giving out anything sensitive, formal, or prehistoric such as your
email address, phone number, or your real name. It's a stroke of genius if you
ask me, and I think it appeals to teenagers secretive nature.

Most teenagers probably don't want all their phone book imported magically in
to their IM app either: 1) because they probably IM and Skype with more, and
more varied, people than they text or phone, and 2) because their phone book
probably includes their annoying aunties and relatives.

I also love the design of the BBM app (on Android). It's straightforward,
single purpose and clean.

~~~
publicfig
I don't know that you have any data on that second section, but it's still
worth pointing out that a great majority of apps that import your contacts
through a contact book allow you to pick and choose who you want. And there's
no reason why PIN codes and contact imports can't co-exist. It's a pretty big
oversight on BBM's part.

~~~
nly
Perhaps, but I haven't missed it. I still think this isolation is a feature,
not a bug.

------
ye
I always thought they were called messaging apps, not "messenger".

------
pinaceae
teenagers in wealthy, western countries will soon be a very small target
group. western europe will shrink dramatically.

just read an article on how western society is becoming more and more
aggressive towards kids due to people not being accustomed to them anymore.
hotels, restaurants banning kids altogether.

------
speeq
Sorry for the shameless plug but, yesterday I've developed a simple app for
the kik messenger platform called "Nearby".

It will show you a list with users sorted by distance, letting you know if the
person is close to you or not. Here is a screenshot:
[http://imgur.com/88AIbgv](http://imgur.com/88AIbgv)

If anyone has kik installed and wants to try it, simply open
[http://nearby.pw](http://nearby.pw) on your phone and it will start in the
kik messenger. It hasn't been fully optimized yet, so if you find any bugs
please let me know.

