A new study conducted in the United States found Facebook to be the most popular site among young teens.
Contrary to earlier researches, a new study has revealed that Facebook is still the most popular social networking site among teenagers in the United States. Based on the new findings by Forrester Research, more than three quarters of the surveyed young teens said they still use Facebook.
The Forrester Research study is based on an online survey of 4,517 users aged between 12 and 17 years. The study recorded teens' interest and usage on other social media sites like Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Vine and others. YouTube recorded a higher rate of youth adoption, but the site's frequency of usage was less compared to Facebook and Instagram. The questionnaire required teens to mark any particular site's' usage with "about once a day," "at least a few times each day," or "all the time." Facebook ranked the highest than any other competing social networks.
"Facebook remains young users' favorite social network. More than three-quarters of online youth use Facebook - twice as many as use Pinterest or Tumblr or Snapchat, and more than use Instagram and WhatApp combined. And 28% of young users who are on Facebook say they use it 'all the time,' a higher percentage than said this about any other social network," according to Forrester's blog post.
The alarming reports of Facebook teen audience fleeing from the site started surfacing last year when the company's CFO said the number of teens visiting the social network had reduced. A report in May last year said that teens in the US were abandoning Facebook in favor of Twitter and in December another report claimed that Facebook was "dead and buried" among teens owning to the growing adult audience. Earlier this year, iStrategy, a digital consultancy lab, said Facebook had lost over 11 million young users since 2011.
Despite all that, the Forrester Research study says the social networking giant has nothing to worry about teens on its site. According to the report, the attrition on the site was significantly small and it still retains a huge majority of its audience. In fact, the firm notes that Facebook usage among teens will not decline in the future as smartphone adoption will rise.
"As today's 12- and 13-year-olds grow into 16- and 17-year-olds, it's likely their Facebook adoption will increase further," Forrester analyst Nate Elliott and Gina Fleming said.
