 "YouTube is the place to be for teens running away from Facebook")
It’s no secret that Facebook is losing its sheen as far as teenagers are concerned. The social networking website, which was once the hub of all things “cool” for teens, over the past few years is now being abandoned by its most faithful. Data gather by a new research has shown that what’s Facebook’s loss seems to be YouTube’s gain.
The Futures Company, a research consultancy, has released glimpses of a report to Mashable showing that YouTube is fast turning out to be the most popular website for teenagers now. 50 percent of teens who took part in the research admitted that YouTube was their favourite website as compared to 45.2 percent of the study taking the social network’s side.
Last year, Facebook was the most popular site amongst 12 to 15 year-olds. This year, 41.6 percent of 12 to 15 year olds said that Facebook was their most favourite website compared to 48 percent of teens overall. Amazon, Google and Twitter came in at third, fourth and fifth positions with 27.8 percent, 25 percent and 19.5 percent votes respectively.
Facebook’s loss is YouTube’s gain (Image credit: Reuters)
As far as twenty-year-olds are concerned, though, Facebook still rules the roost. 55 percent of the responders in their twenties admitted that Facebook is still the most popular for them. Twitter has also seen a gradual, growing acceptance from 12 to 29 year-olds. 14.1 percent people last year said Twitter was their favourite website while 16.5 percent said Twitter works best for them in 2013. Facebook’s overall numbers, however, went down from 57.6 percent to 51.7 percent.
“Our new findings do suggest some weakness for Facebook, but I need to preface everything we discuss here with the fact that Facebook remains the favorite website overall among our sample of 12- to 29-year-olds,” said Rob Callender, Director of Youth Insights at the Futures Co. “That said, Facebook achieves that distinction thanks to twenty-somethings.”
Interestingly, when faced with the statement, “I’m addicted to Facebook,” only 18.3 percent teens between 12 to 15 years of age agreed to it whereas 30.5 percent of 20-somethings agreed to the statement. Callender says that this fact goes on to show that Facebook isn’t creating as many new fanatics as it once did.
Facebook, for the first time ever, admitted that it was falling short on teen users. The social networking website’s CFO, David Ebersman said, “Our best analysis on youth engagement in the US reveals that usage of Facebook among US teens overall was stable from Q2 to Q3, but we did see a decrease in daily users, specifically among younger teens.”
While Ebersman did admit that there wasn’t an accurate way in which teenagers’ activity could be measured on the social networking website, thanks to multiple issues like privacy and false information, Facebook seems to have a system in place to track some usage data by teens. Recently Facebook announced a new controversial policy which opened up the social network for teens, allowing them to use it just like any adult user.
Would you rather spend more time on YouTube over Facebook? Do you think videos are the way to go over Facebook stories? Let us know in the comments below:
 "Russian drones over Poland: Trump’s tepid reaction a wake-up call for Nato?")
 "As Russia pushes east, Ukraine faces mounting pressure to defend its heartland")
 "Why Mossad was not on board with Israel’s strike on Hamas in Qatar")
 "Turkey: Erdogan's police arrest opposition mayor Hasan Mutlu, dozens officials in corruption probe")
 "Russian drones over Poland: Trump’s tepid reaction a wake-up call for Nato?")
 "As Russia pushes east, Ukraine faces mounting pressure to defend its heartland")
 "Why Mossad was not on board with Israel’s strike on Hamas in Qatar")
 "Turkey: Erdogan's police arrest opposition mayor Hasan Mutlu, dozens officials in corruption probe")
