We know teens aren’t that into Facebook anymore. Now we have some fairly stunning data from iStrategyLabs to back that up.
There are 3 million fewer teens on Facebook now than in 2011, according to a study from iStrategyLabs released Wednesday. That marks a 25 percent drop from 2011 when the digital consulting agency last looked at the numbers.
Meanwhile the number of Facebook users in the 55+ age demographic exploded, seeing 80.4 percent growth from 2011 to 2013. Clearly for teens Facebook has become less and less of a getaway from family members.
Check out the chart from iStrategyLabs below.
The numbers for the study were pulled from Facebook Advertising, the page where the company pitches campaigns to advertisers. Some have questioned the validity of these figures considering they are not official Facebook numbers. Study author DJ Saul told the Huffington Post in an email that “it’s certainly valid criticism and should be taken into consideration.” Facebook did not respond to a request for comment from The Huffington Post on Thursday morning.
The data doesn’t look at who’s leaving Facebook just at who’s on Facebook and these numbers indicate that adoption rates among teens are dropping. (iStrategyLabs caught some flack for the misleading headline of its study, “3 Million Teens Leave Facebook In 3 Years.”)
Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerbergbrushed off the question of the social network’s popularity with teens during a July 2013 earnings call. Last October the issue exploded when Facebook chief financial officer David Ebersman admitted that the site had seen a “decrease in daily users among younger teens.”
Where are all those teens going? Probably Instagram. A larger percentage of teens called the photo-sharing site important to them in arecent survey from Piper Jaffray. At the same time fewer teens said Facebook was very important to them. The two networks are now tied for “most popular” among teens.
Fortunately for Facebook, it owns Instagram.
Photo Cred: Getty Images
