Survey: Teens Getting Tired With Facebook

Though Facebook is still the most popular social network among teens, their enthusiasm for Mark Zuckerberg's network is decreasing, according to new findings from the Pew Research Center.

Teens share a wide range of information about themselves on social media sites; indeed the sites themselves are designed to encourage the sharing of information and the expansion of networks.

However, few teens embrace a fully public approach to social media. Instead, they take an array of steps to restrict and prune their profiles, and their patterns of reputation management on social media vary greatly according to their gender and network size.


These are among the key findings from a new report based on a survey of 802 teens that examines teens’ privacy management on social media sites:

• Teens are sharing more information about themselves on social media sites than they did in the past. For the five different types of personal information that we measured in both 2006 and 2012, each is significantly more likely to be shared by teen social media users in our most recent survey.
• Teen Twitter use has grown significantly: 24% of online teens use Twitter, up from 16% in 2011.
• The typical (median) teen Facebook user has 300 friends, while the typical teen Twitter user has 79 followers.
• Focus group discussions with teens show that they have waning enthusiasm for Facebook, disliking the increasing adult presence, people sharing excessively, and stressful “drama,” but they keep using it because participation is an important part of overall teenage socializing.

Outside of Twitter and Facebook, teens don't have as much of an online presence. In 2012, 11% of teen social media users used Instagram, while Tumblr (5%), Google+ (3%) and Pinterest (1%) drew in even fewer teens.