14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook has recently announced a new modification to its policy, which will now enable teenagers to post publicly, something which was forbidden thus far. Considering that the company’s ever-growing user base is actually hemorrhaging teenagers, will this gimmick bring back some of the younger users?
A study released recently has confirmed something that others before it have said – that teenagers aren’t that big of fans of Facebook anymore and they prefer Twitter over the world’s biggest social network, which has become a little bit too crowded (not to mention their parents are probably using it).
The latest change from Facebook – allowing users under 18 to post messages publicly, rather than just for their friends, seems to be a way for them to try and bring back some users that have left or to keep those that are thinking about it and have already stopped engaging on the platform that much.
Of course, the decision has already caused a ruckus and parents are none too happy with Facebook’s decision since it means their kids are even more exposed than they were before.
Combined with another change that Facebook implemented recently, namely the fact that no one will be able to hide from search anymore, let’s just say no one is too happy.
“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. In the event that our users increasingly engage with other products and services, we may experience a decline in user engagement and our business could be harmed,” Facebook said in a statement, basically admitting the results of the studies and the reasons behind their new policy changes.
Unfortunately, however, their efforts might not pay off since a simple privacy setting is not their biggest issue. Teens are more inclined to use mobile devices than the rest of us who were raised without this much technology and thus, they’re more likely to want to use tools that are a lot speedier to handle, like Facebook mentioned – Instagram, rather than browse through Facebook.