The younger audience prefers Facebook to other social sites

Apr 10, 2015 08:56 GMT  ·  By

Despite recent rumors claiming that teenagers might be growing tired of Facebook and that they are drawn in by more appealing social platforms, a survey proves the exact contrary.

It was often said that younger people were not so attracted by Facebook, seeing it as rather dull and old-fashioned, especially since more and more older people started gaining interest in the social network.

Teenagers had often declared that they lack freedom on Facebook, now that even their grandparents have access to it.

Facebook has expanded a lot in recent years, which means that it has gathered a not so young userbase and that it might have lost its cool factor, driving teenagers away towards other apps and platforms less engaging for the elderly crowd.

It was actually thought that Instagram had surpassed Facebook when it came to younger audience, but a survey published on Wednesday by the Pew Research Center shows that Facebook remains everyone’s favorite, teenagers in particular.

Other social websites are not that far behind

However, even if Facebook still holds the crown with a 71 percentage of teens stating that they use it, the other social networks did not fall that much behind. 51 percent of the almost 1000 teens that took part in the survey answered that they use Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.

Next in line is Snapchat, which allows users to send messages and photos that will shortly disappear, followed by Twitter. Surprisingly, Google Plus had a fair percentage of around 33 percent, beating other social platforms like Vine or Tumblr.

So all the claims that Facebook‘s popularity has slowly started going downhill, especially after all the data privacy issues came to light, can now go to rest.

It is vital for Facebook to maintain its younger user base, especially since most advertising campaigns target them. Losing its younger audience would also mean losing a large part of its advertisement deals.

Furthermore, the survey shows that boys are more prone to use Facebook while girls are more keen on visually-oriented platforms like Instagram.