According to a study conducted in the United States by the Pew Research Center, Facebook has never been so popular among young people: only 51% of Americans aged 13 to 17 are present on this social network.
Those who spoke about Facebook's takeover of Instagram in April 2012 as the best investment ever made by Mark Zuckerberg's firm were probably not wrong: even though young people are deserting Facebook, they seem to like Instagram a lot. .
Exit Facebook, the new darlings of young people are called YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat
No one would have thought it was seven or eight years ago, but today, among the young, Facebook is losing users at the speed of Grand V. A study conducted in the United States by the prestigious Pew Research Center confirms: only 51% of Americans between the ages of 13 and 17 are registered on Facebook. Today, among social networks, teenagers especially prefer YouTube (85% say use it), Instagram (72%) and Snapchat (69%). To a lesser extent, they are on Twitter (32%), while Tumblr and Reddit collect confidential audiences (9% and 7% respectively). These results contrast with those obtained during the 2015 edition of the same study: at the time, 71% of adolescents reported using Facebook. No other social network could boast such a popularity rating: only 52% were on Instagram, Snapchat garnering 41%.
Today, when asked about the social networks they use most often, teenagers mostly mention Snapchat (35%) and YouTube (32%). Facebook goes down in the charts not only in terms of the number of registered, but also in terms of frequency of use.
Girls are especially fond of Snapchat, boys prefer YouTube
The results of this study also teach us that Facebook is today the preserve of young people from modest families mainly: only 36% of adolescents from households earning over $ 75,000 a year use this social network, even though Teenagers from households earning less than $ 30,000 a year, 70% are on Facebook. The trend was observed in the 2015 edition of this study. The fact of owning or not owning a smartphone (which today serves as the main gateway to social networks) does not seem to depend on the social environment, since 95% of teenagers say they have one. It should be noted that this proportion was only 73% in 2015.
In terms of gender differences, of all the social networks, girls are much more likely to favor Snapchat (42%, compared to 29% of boys), while boys say they turn first to YouTube (39%, against 25% of girls). Beyond the data on the popularity of this or that social network, a finding emerges from this study: today, more than ever, the consumption of social networks turns much less around a single platform.
