Skip to main content

Twitter steals teen love from Facebook

twitter steals teen love from facebook dislike shirt

Facebook is for olds.

This is nothing new for anyone acquainted with a high schooler, but a survey from financial firm Piper Jaffray once again found teens prefer Twitter to Facebook. 26 percent of teens chose Twitter as their social network as choice, while 23 percent chose Facebook and Instagram. The company surveyed 8,600 teens, and the Twitter-Facebook-Instagram trifecta pulled way out in front of other social networks — poor Google+ only nabbed three percent of the vote. 

Now, it’s not like Twitter is ahead by all that much, and a three percent margin might not seem like that big of a deal. But it’s noteworthy because Piper Jaffray took a similar survey earlier this year, and Facebook came out on top with 33 percent of teen allegiance. During the previous survey, Piper Jaffray pointed out that Facebook’s stronghold over teens was in decline, with fewer choosing it as the most important website. 

People have been writing about how teens are moving from Facebook to Twitter for the past year or so, and they’re right, but that doesn’t mean Facebook has to fret yet. Instagram remains popular with young people, and it is prepping for video ads in coming months, which will provide additional revenue. And Facebook continues to gain users at a promising clip; with his push to spread Internet access to developing countries, it appears Zuckerberg is more focused on hooking international users than retaining the alliance of young people. 

Facebook’s precipitous drop in popularity among young people is something the company should be worried about in the long term; if it loses its position as the mainstay, need-to-have network among young people, its status as a dominant social network will wither as its user base ages. Of course, Facebook has been planting the seeds to expand from a social network into much more for a while now; with Graph Search, the company clearly intends to edge into search engine territory. 

Editors' Recommendations

Kate Knibbs
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kate Knibbs is a writer from Chicago. She is very happy that her borderline-unhealthy Internet habits are rewarded with a…
Elon Musk setting up generative-AI project at Twitter, report claims
A digital image of Elon Musk in front of a stylized background with the Twitter logo repeating.

Elon Musk is embarking on his own artificial intelligence (AI) project within Twitter, Business Insider reported on Tuesday.

With so much attention currently lavished upon generative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard chatbots, it’s perhaps little wonder that Musk -- a man who appears to love technology and attention in equal measure -- wants a piece of the action.

Read more
Look out, Twitter Circle is exposing private tweets
A stylized composite of the Twitter logo.

Twitter Circle launched last summer as a feature that lets you tweet to a specific group of people. In the company’s own words, Twitter Circle allows for “more intimate conversations and [to] build closer connections with select followers.”

But according to multiple reports, some of these private tweets have been reaching the rest of the platform, which, depending on the nature of the content, could result in some rather awkward situations.

Read more
Elon Musk’s latest plan for Twitter hasn’t gone down well
A digital image of Elon Musk in front of a stylized background with the Twitter logo repeating.

Elon Musk has said that from April 15, Twitter accounts will have to be subscribed to Twitter Blue to have any chance of their tweets appearing in the For You recommendations feed. Membership of Twitter’s premium tier will also be required to vote in Twitter polls, he said.

Musk, who acquired Twitter in October 2022 in a deal worth $44 billion, said the move was “the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over” the For You feed. Offered as an alternative to the Following feed, For You deploys an algorithm to serve up tweets that it thinks you’ll like, often from accounts that you don’t follow.

Read more