Teens Not Abandoning Facebook

There have been lots of media reports lately to the effect that teens are abandoning Facebook. This isn't true -- or, at least, is a sufficient enough misrepresentation of the source Pew Internet & American Life Project report that that organization felt compelled to issue a comment yesterday. 

Teens Haven’t Abandoned Facebook (Yet)

When we released our “Teens, Social Media and Privacy” report in May, one thread of news
coverage focused on teens’ “waning enthusiasm” for Facebook. This theme surfaced during
our focus group discussions with teens and stood in contrast to the excitement that was
associated with newer platforms like Instagram and Twitter. We were not the first to suggest that teens were starting to diversify their social media portfolio, and as such, our report became part of a larger meme that swiftly declared Facebook’s imminent demise.

But sampling other items at the social media buffet is not the same as swearing off salad
forever. As recent coverage has noted, our national survey data did not indicate a decrease
in the total number of Facebook-using teens, even though the focus group findings suggest
that teens’ relationship with Facebook is complicated and may be evolving.

While some of our teen focus group participants reported positive feelings about their use of Facebook, many spoke negatively about an increasing adult presence, the high stakes of managing self-presentation on the site, the burden of negative social interactions (“drama”), or feeling overwhelmed by friends who share too much. One teen told us that he started using Twitter because “everyone’s saying Facebook’s dead,” while another one explained that once you create a Twitter and an Instagram account, “then you'll just kind of forget about Facebook.”

However, few of the teens we spoke with had actually abandoned the biggest social media site altogether. As we noted in the report, “there were no indications in either the national survey or the focus groups of a mass exodus from Facebook.”

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