Young people dumping Facebook for newer social networks: Study

Young people seem to have got wearied of Facebook and are switching to other social networks, according to a study being conducted by Telegraph newspaper. The trend among the young seems to be in favour of newer networks like Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp, the research reveals.

According to Daniel Miller, a professor of Material Culture at University College London, who is himself conducting a similar study, young people were turning away from Facebook in droves and were turning to other social networks.

Miller wrote on theconversation.com: ''As part of a European Union-funded study on social media, we are running nine simultaneous 15-month ethnographic studies in eight countries. What we've learned from working with 16-18-year-olds in the UK is that Facebook is not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried.

Mostly they feel embarrassed even to be associated with it. Where once parents worried about their children joining Facebook, the children now say it is their family that insists they stay there to post about their lives. 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.''

Researching the Facebook use of 16-18 year olds in eight EU countries, the Global Social Media Impact Study found that with parents and older users saturating Facebook, younger users were shifting to alternative platforms.

Teens cared less whether alternative services were less functional and sophisticated, and they also seemed to be unconcerned about how information about them was being used commercially or as part of surveillance practice by the security services, according to the research.

"What appears to be the most seminal moment in a young person's decision to leave Facebook was surely that dreaded day your mum sends you a friend request," wrote Miller.

"It is nothing new that young people care about style and status in relation to their peers, and Facebook is simply not cool anymore."

Forty per cent of Italian Facebook users reported never to have changed their privacy settings, while 80 per cent said they neither cared nor were they concerned if their personal data was available and accessed, either by an organisation or an individual.