Facebook struggles to keep young people interested in its app
The crown of the most popular social network has been contested since the last decade. However, it appears that Facebook is now in deep trouble.
Documents leaked by a former Facebook worker reveal that she is at great risk of losing much of her network of young users, specifically Gen Z and millennials.
Frances Haugen is a 37-year-old woman who worked for the social network as a product manager on Facebook's civic integrity team. In an interview on CBS 's 60 Minutes program, Haugen claimed that he left Facebook earlier this year after becoming exasperated with the company. However, it would copy a series of memos and documents that would reveal sensitive information from the website.
Within this data it was revealed that high-profile accounts belonging to politicians and celebrities had received special treatment in terms of moderation policies, since they had been applied less strictly or had not been applied at all. Another information of special relevance, and which we will talk about on this occasion, is that Facebook has severe problems generating a new audience for young content and maintaining adolescent users.
Risk of loss of users
The leak shows that the US Gen Z user base has decreased since 2012. However, in recent years it is even more worrisome, as youth users have decreased by 13% since 2019.
Bloomberg , who had access to the documents revealed by Haugen, said that users between the ages of 13 and 17 spend an average of 25.9 minutes a day inside the app. Meanwhile, users over 30 years old spend an average of 58.2 minutes a day. So the social network has the risk of losing generation Z and a large part of the Millennial generation.
The problem is a matter of perception. Well, according to a presentation made by a group of researchers belonging to Facebook, it is read that a large part of the youth population conceives the social network as a place for people between 40 and 50 years old. In addition to this, Facebook's format prevents it from competing with emerging social networks such as TikTok, which has had a large influx of teenagers in recent years.
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