Killing Facebook


Facebook's users are going down - and quickly. In 2017, Facebook's user base declined by 15 million people since 2017. The biggest drop was within the teen and millennial users. People from ages 14 - 34 are not particularly active on the sight, and seem to be switching over to Instagram. Recent exposes regarding the misinformation, ads, and fake news that all exist on Facebook, designed to influence users for political or business purposes have turned a lot of people off the site. Facebook has breached a lot of the population's trust, causing them to become inactive or delete their accounts entirely. People are not leaving social media altogether. About 80% of people the U.S are on some form of social media. Instagram is another photo-sharing platform, which collects significantly less personal information than Facebook, is a more appealing option to many. It is also more 'hip' with the younger generations, with more than 1 billion monthly users. Despite this, Facebook is still the most used social media in the U.S, however, the rate of its decline is fast. Instagram is a distant second, but I believe that within the next ten years it will overtake Facebook.
 Young people are not using Facebook. Ask any teen if they do - the answer will probably be no. Within my social circles, I do not know a single person who has Facebook. Even my 45-year-old mother switched from Facebook to Instagram.
It is very interesting to see this shift. It makes me believe that the population is filtering their media consumption, and I think this is a very good thing. When it became common knowledge that Facebook was full of fake news, and plagued with misinformation, people stopped going to that site. I think the U.S is better at consuming media that I had originally thought, and I predict that Facebook's users will continue to decline.

Links: https://www.marketplace.org/2019/03/06/tech/exclusive-look-numbers-showing-users-leaving-facebook-by-the-millions

Comments

  1. Clyde's Media BlogMay 1, 2019 at 7:12 PM

    I think this is a great topic and very true. My mother for her job writes articles about common parent techniques to what is happening with the kardashians. Her company has also started to leave facebook because of the new ways they spread there advertisement. I think your prediction that instagram will take over in the next 10 year is defiantly true as long as a new big social media outlet doesn't comes out.

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