
Why Teenagers Are Fleeing Facebook - ytNumbers
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/5-reasons-teenagers-are-fleeing-facebook-182756430.html
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tashoecraft
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.

~~~
bentcorner
> _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?

~~~
demallien
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.

~~~
david927
Remember your Clay Christensen: The late majority follow the early adopters.
In this case, this means where the teenagers move to, that is where the
parents will eventually go. The writing has been on the wall for this for a
few years now -- FB doesn't stand a chance to last out the decade.

~~~
demallien
Teenagers as a group are not trendsetters for other age groups, for example
when did you ever see a Justin Bieber hairdo on anyone over the age of 17?

They are time rich and money poor, a situation that reverses as you get older.
They live geographically close to most of their friends. This is mostly not
true for adults, who tend to be time poor, wealthier than teenagers, and
geographically separated from their friends. Because of this, looking to
teenagers to understand what most people want from their social media does not
seem like a particularly good idea to me.

~~~
jlgreco
_" when did you ever see a Justin Bieber hairdo on anyone over the age of
17?"_

Give it a few years...

------
adregan
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.

~~~
larrys
"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.)

~~~
GFischer
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.

------
henrikschroder
> 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
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.

~~~
jgreen10
It's more like... the social network. Everything else is in the perimeter.

------
kmfrk
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.

~~~
pearjuice
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-mcgrady
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.

~~~
EGreg
But SMS is also sent through a company(ies)

~~~
k-mcgrady
With Whatsapp I'm sending my messages using data that's already going through
my phone company. In other words why not use SMS? By using Whatapp I'm just
adding a second company to the mix that doesn't need to be there.

~~~
EGreg
Mostly because the sms exchanges between companies are worse than using data
to access an internet based messaging service. They have wacky standards
support (Group MMS?) and wildly overcharge you for sending 144 characters.

~~~
jlgreco
Who _doesn 't_ have unlimited SMS?

I mean that seriously, nobody in any of my social circles uses whatsapp. I
honestly don't have a solid grasp on who exactly their core market is.

~~~
DanBC
Do you know many 13 - 16 year olds?

> I honestly don't have a solid grasp on who exactly their core market is.

I'm guessing it's whoever was using blackberry messenger.

~~~
jlgreco
> _" Do you know many 13 - 16 year olds?"_

Admittedly no, but aren't most children on their parent's cellphone plans?

I would expect the cash strapped ones to be in their early twenties, but I'm
not seeing that in practice.

I suspect the value in whatsapp is in something other than limitations of SMS,
but I can't say what.

------
brohoolio
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.

------
gdilla
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.

~~~
hellbanTHIS
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.

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

------
ctdonath
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.

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

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

------
kamilszybalski
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.

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

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

------
mirrorshades
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.

------
polskibus
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

        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.

------
kazagistar
> Teenagers, not surprisingly, are hip to corporate exploitation.

That's why they use Pintrest instead!

------
ihenriksen
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.

------
wyck
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
No offense, but avoid a career in marketing.

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

------
Roboprog
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)

------
hughes
When people leave Facebook, where do they go?

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

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

Out?

------
_pmf_
And so it begins ...

~~~
david927
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.

------
Pitarou
Says Yahoo!?!?

~~~
rocky1138
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.

------
GhotiFish
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
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!

~~~
GhotiFish
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.

------
nobleach
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.

~~~
philwelch
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
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.

~~~
gruseom
Marketing to teenagers definitely goes back decades, but not forever. I
believe it is very much a post-WWII phenomenon.

