Increasing numbers of young people are over Facebook.
Forty-four percent of users between the ages 18 and 29 say they deleted the Facebook app from their phone sometime during the past year, according to a new poll from Pew Research.
A separate study of teenagers from Common Sense Media finds that only 15 percent of 13-to-17 year olds say Facebook is their main social networking site. That’s down significantly from 2012, when 68 percent of all teens said Facebook was their preferred social networking platform. Today’s young people are increasingly turning to Snapchat and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.
Graphic: Common Sense Media
One teenager in the Common Sense Media focus group said she only uses Facebook to communicate with her grandparents.
Adults might also be getting on Facebook less often.
Overall, 42 percent of adult Facebook users report having taken weeks-long breaks from the social media platform over the past year.
And more than half have adjusted their privacy settings in the wake of disclosures that consulting firm Cambridge Analytica collected information on tens of millions of Facebook users without their knowledge or consent.
However, older people are much less likely to have adjusted their Facebook privacy settings. Only one-third of users 65 and older have done so. Compare that to the 64 percent of young users who’ve adjusted privacy settings.
When it comes to taking a Facebook break, the same percentages of old and young users haven’t bothered to check Facebook for several weeks or more.
Twelve percent of Facebook users over 65 have deleted the Facebook app from their phone in the past year.
