Facebook is dead and buried to teens research finds

A study of how older teenagers use social media has found that Facebook is “not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried” and is being replaced by simpler social networks such as Twitter and Snapchat.
Young people now see the site as “uncool” and keep their profiles live purely to stay in touch with older relatives, among whom it remains popular.

Not only are 16-18 year olds moving on to rivals such as Snapchat, Whatsapp and even Twitter, teens are embarrassed to be so much as associated with Facebook, as their parents adopt the network, researchers said.

Reuters reported that U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet had allowed plaintiffs to sue the social network and its banks over the 2012 IPO. The argument is that Facebook should have disclosed internal projections of how increased mobile usage might reduce future revenues

Professor Daniel Miller of University College London, an anthropologist who worked on the research, wrote in an article for academic news website The Conversation: Mostly they feel embarrassed even to be associated with it.

Parents have worked out how to use the site and see it as a way for the family to remain connected. In response, the young are moving on to cooler things.

Prof Miller, writing on academic news website the Conversation, added that the research found that “slick isn’t always best” as even the teenagers that took part in the study admitted that Facebook is technically better than its rivals. Teens do not care that alternative services are less functional and sophisticated, and they also unconcerned about how information about them is being used commercially or as part of surveillance practice by the security services, the research found. 

“It is more integrated, better for photo albums, organising parties and more effective for observing people’s relationships,” he said, yet other factors are much more important  to teens - namely the fact they are likely to get a friend request from their mum on Facebook.

In part of the study's research with Italian Facebook users, 40% of users had never changed their privacy settings and 80% said they "were not concerned or did not care" if their personal data was available and accessed, either by an organisation or an individual.

Information that people choose to publish on Facebook has generally been through a psychological filtering process, researchers found - unlike conversations, photos and video shared through more private tools such as Skype, or on mobile apps.

“You just can’t be young and free if you know your parents can access your every indiscretion," he said. 

WhatsApp has overtaken Facebook as the number one way to send messages, say the researchers, while Snapchat has gained in popularity in recent months by allowing users to send images which “self-destruct” after a short period on the recipients phone in order to maintain privacy.

Researchers found that close friends were using Snapchat to communicate, while WhatsApp was used with acquaintances and Twitter broadcasted indiscriminately to anyone who chose to follow that person.
The study found that Facebook was now used by teenagers as a way to stay in touch with older members of their family and sibling who have left for university and has "evolved into a very different animal" from its early days as a social network focusing on young users at university.

Facebook, which will be a decade old next year, is currently offering 70m shares for sale at $55.05 a share, 41m of which belong to founder Mark Zuckerberg and are being unloaded to cover a tax bill.
The stock has climbed well above the $38 price set in Facebook's initial public offering 19 months ago.