[ 2013-12-28 ]

Facebook is ‘dead and buried’ for young people
Facebook is “dead and buried” to young people,
who are fleeing the site to escape their parents,
a major study of social media has found.
The project’s lead researcher dealt the ultimate
blow to the formerly ground-breaking social media
site, saying it was “simply not cool any
more”.
“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,”
wrote Professor Daniel Miller, who is leading the
Global Social Media Impact study looking into
online habits around the world.
He said that children and teenagers are
increasingly communicating through newer
contenders such as Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat
and WhatsApp.
They are apparently logging off to avoid the
stigma of using the same site as the older
generation – and to keep their indiscretions
private from relatives.
“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,” he wrote on the website
theconversation.com.
“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.”
Mr Miller said the switch was taking place despite
the fact that none of the rising stars of social
media apps can match Facebook for ease of use.
There was also “no evidence” that young people
in the UK had switched their social networking
based on privacy concerns, despite well publicised
campaigns against Facebook.
Rather, they were driven to find new platforms
that they could make their own, he said.
“Young people care about style and status in
relation to their peers, which seems sufficient to
explain change in this instance,” he said.
Their use of social media is now fragmented across
several different sites to share different
information with various groups of people.
“In my school research, the closest friends are
connected to each other via Snapchat, WhatsApp is
used to communicate with quite close friends and
Twitter the wider friends. Instagram can include
strangers and is used a little differently,”
said Mr Miller.
“Facebook, on the other hand, has become the
link with older family, or even older siblings who
have gone to university.”
He added that few schoolchildren said they would
go so far as to close their Facebook accounts, but
they are now using the site largely to keep in
touch with older family members.
“I don’t expect Facebook to necessarily
disappear altogether,” he said. “But I think
it’s finished for the young in the UK and I
suspect other countries will follow.”
Mr Miller is one of team of eight ethnographic
researchers based at University College London who
are working on the EU-funded study across seven
countries including Brazil, China, India and the
UK to examine social media trends.
They are examining topics including how people
connect via the internet, variations in social
media use regionally and what contribution social
media has made to political developments such as
the Arab Spring uprisings.

Source - The Times(UK)

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