Facebook losing appeal with teens: Study

Facebook is fast losing its appeal with teens who are increasingly spending less time on Facebook than on instant messaging apps, with many saying the social network was not as ''cool'' as it used to be, according to a new study involving 170,000 internet users, PTI reported.

As many as 50 per cent participants in the study reported using Facebook less frequently than they did in the past.

According to marketingpilgrim.com when one looked at just the teens in the US and the UK, 64 per cent said they were spending less time on Facebook because they were bored.

As many as 27 per cent of teens said Facebook was not as cool as it used to be, with 29 per cent saying they were not on Facebook as often.

The study noted that teens continued to communicate digitally, but now they were doing it via Instagram and messaging apps.

According to the GlobalWebIndex (GWI) Social Summary for Q3 2014, even though Facebook had more users, activity such as photo sharing and messaging was down by 20 per cent in the last two years.

According to commentators, this could prove that apps were eating into Facebook's business or maybe people were just getting bored with sharing their entire life in videos, pictures and 20-word blurbs.

Meanwhile, AFP reported that social media showed no signs of slowing and in fact every major social network on the web from LinkedIn to Google+ had seen its active user numbers increase since the start of 2014.

However, in sheer growth Tumblr left the rest in the shade, with the microblogging and multimedia sharing platform seeing its active user numbers soar by 120 per cent over the past six months.

Tumblr was not the only social site to experience a serious growth spurt; Pinterest's popularity was also growing by leaps and bounds as it saw 55 per cent more members and a 111-per cent rise in active user numbers over the same period, putting it in second place ahead of Instagram.

However all three would need to go some distance before they came close to challenging Facebook - 1.35 billion users and counting - but the Global Web Index figures.