This is a statistic many would find hard to believe. Facebook is reported to have lost close to 10% of its subscribers among the youth, particularly, in the 12 to 17 years age bracket. And this is limited to the users of the social media network within the United States. This has been stated in a report by eMarketer, a firm that specializes in digital measurement.
Interestingly, the same firm had made a prediction last year that Facebook would lose young subscribers this year, but it had estimated that the drop will be to the extent of just 3.4% whereas it now says the actual drop is threefold this figure. However, these are not figures officially certified by Facebook, but assessed by an outside agency.
Analysts believe Facebook is not considered so ‘cool’ by these teenagers in the US and perhaps elsewhere too. This is confirmed by the decline in the users of the youth brigade of Facebook, but increase on other platforms like Instagram and Snapchat. One major difference seen between these platforms is that while Facebook keeps a digital record of the postings and serves as a useful tool to recall one’s past with nostalgia, the other two don’t. The photos and videos will disappear after some period. But for these young boys and girls, that does not seem to matter.
The figure for drop in Facebook users in the US, under 25 years, stood at 2.8 million, according to eMarketer. The firm has gone on to make the prediction for the year 2018 and expects that another 2.8 million will drop out of the social media platform, in this age group of below 25 years.
Going even one more step further, the predictions for 2018 have been broken up within this age group. Accordingly, the drop will be 9.3% for those below 11 years, 5.6% for those in the 12-17 years and 5.8% for the age group 17 to 24.
Though Facebook may not accept these figures as they are, internally it may be slightly concerned and will have to do some introspection to find ways to reverse the trend. The same firm has, however, predicted that Facebook’s overall subscriber base may actually continue to register growth in the US. And the growth in Instagram should also come as good news for Facebook since it owns that platform as well. Snapchat is also gaining popularity in the US and it is growing at a decent pace.