You might have heard it before, but in case you didn’t, Facebook is losing touch with the youth. Sourced from various reports, including some of its own internal files, numbers show that there is a gradual decline of the platform’s popularity among younger users; Facebook’s fire for the “kids” seems to be slowly fizzling out.

Especially upon release, Facebook was the choice social media platform for the youth. Everyone and their mother’s dog knew and wanted to get on the platform. From 2008 – 2010, maybe even up to late 2011, Facebook had that ‘Mojo’. Over time however, it seemed to start losing that cool factor. As an older demographic of users came aboard, Facebook subsequently started declining in popularity for younger users.

Is Facebook ‘Getting Old’? 

Facebook was losing ground, while Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok were gaining it. Somewhere along the way, people seemed to shift towards platforms that allowed for more culture, expression, and offered niche-content. It tried adding now-popular functions such as Stories and Reels, but those didn’t catch on exactly the way they did for its counterparts.

Mark Zuckerberg commented, as part of their Q3 earnings announcement, that Facebook is making winning back the youth a key priority, even at the expense of its older users.

As per Mark:

“We’re retooling our teams to make serving young adults their north star, rather than optimizing for the larger number of older people. Like everything, this will involve trade-offs in our products and it will likely mean that the rest of our community will grow more slowly than it otherwise would have. But it should also mean that our services become stronger for young adults. This shift will take years, not months, to fully execute, and I think it’s the right approach to building our community and company for the long term.”

Zuckerberg knows that youth trends are crucial to ongoing growth and are often the key determinants of a platform’s longevity. In an attempt to win back the youth, Zuckerberg notes that significant changes are to be expected. What these changes are exactly are not yet clear as of now, but Zuckerberg does hint at the potential of Reels.

Reels as a central focus could potentially re-ignite Facebook’s attractiveness for the youth, as well as open up new opportunities with regards to all types of interaction and engagement. Additionally, this particular graphic was also included in the latest Facebook Files leak; it was a sort of diagram about re-engaging the youth and featured three key areas:

  • Fix The Fundamentals – Providing a better, more relevant connection experience.

  • Enable Positive, Productive Experiences – Help young users feel good about spending time on the platform. Provide users with something that’s value-added.

  • Help YA Achieve Their Goals And Create Change – Offer services to help young users solve problems and overcome challenges.

Again, these are but conceptual notes and nothing specific as of yet, however they do offer light insight as to the possible path and refinements Facebook can make in relation to increasing both its appeal as well as the sense of worth younger users can have on the platform.

The Wrap

This push can, theoretically, cause somewhat of a disconnect between the various age groups that call Facebook home, however the fact that the platform has become such a crucial connection tool sort of negates any form of total-separation as a result of “mixing it up a little”. Look at it this way, older people learned to adapt to what younger people are doing and what they’re into. If the saying is that the youth are “the holders of tomorrow”, then that, in essence, should be the same across most fronts, even on social media. Even older users will learn to benefit from a progressive, more youth-driven Facebook.

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Sources

https://bit.ly/3mkhjNR