There might be a chance for today's overly connected, sext-fiending youngsters yet: teenagers are not that in to Facebook anymore. Facebook's annual report to investors and one tech CEO with a 15-year-old sister, confirmed as much.
Business Insider surveys the current tweenage wasteland in a new report that cites a focus group of kids under 25 as proof that kids these days are getting over Facebook. "They gave me the typical teenage response: 'We're bored with Facebook,'" App maker Adam Ludwin explained. Meanwhile, Josh Miller, CEO of Branch, just asked his little sister what she thought of Facebook. Miller writes:
She mentioned that she tries to visit Facebook as infrequently as possible. “It’s addicting,” she bemoaned, “you end up getting lost in it and I don’t like that.” I found this perspective interesting. Facebook is clearly doing a good job delivering relevant content, yet its users (at least this one) feel poorly when they use the service. Related, she mentioned that she only visits Facebook after her Instagram Feed updates have been exhausted.My takeaway: Facebook may have an irreversibly bad brand.
What's more, Miller's kid sister also hates Facebook Chat for the same reasons we all came to hate AOL Instant Messenger ten years ago: “When you go on Facebook Chat," she says, "the people you don’t want to talk to are always the ones who immediately chat with you.”
Facebook's 10-K letter to investors, filed at the SEC in February, also echoes the trend:
We believe that some of our users, particularly our younger users, are aware of and actively engaging with other products and services similar to, or as a substitute for, Facebook. For example, we believe that some of our users have reduced their engagement with Facebook in favor of increased engagement with other products and services such as Instagram.
Anyway, maybe we shouldn't be too hopeful for the kids just yet: bottom line is Zuckerberg still owns all of them.
