Facebook Status

           This weekend I read an article under Yahoo Finance titled “5 Reasons Teenagers Are Fleeing Facebook” by Rick Newman. This article was published on November 8, 2013 and, as the title says, it is five reasons explaining the drop in  teenage Facebook users. 

The five reasons are 

1. Parents (and others of the elder generations) are on Facebook. 
2. It has too much pointless stuff (news feeds).
3. It has too many advertisements.
4.  It is vapid (a popularity contest).
5. It is common to make fake friends or make friends with random people.  

     All of these results were determined by survey and/or interview. This is a problem for Facebook, losing their teenage users, because it means that these teenagers are building up other social networking websites and giving Facebook less attention in social networking. If Facebook does not realize these issues and remove them, then Facebook will only receive demand from the older generations.

           
          Some of these issues personally seem pointless; however some are serious problems and make sense. For example, reasons 4 and 5 can’t be changed. People are going to try to gain popularity; it is human nature. All people want to be liked and accepted. In other words no one wants to be an outcast. Now there is another format for gaining popularity (appreciation, respect, reputation, etc.) and it’s called Facebook. It’s something that can be expected everywhere.

           In the case of meeting random people on Facebook; this goes along with the main idea of the website, which is to meet and learn about people you can relate to online. Therefore Facebook, by default, cannot change that.

           Reason 1 is pointless because discouraging older generations would keep a lot of the people who fund and support Facebook from using the website, putting Facebook in an even worse scenario than the drop in teenage users. However, if the people behind Facebook really were that desperate they could create an age limit for the website, so it is not a completely unhelpful suggestion.

           Reasons 2 and 3 are things that Facebook should take note of and respond to with changes. Everyone will notice if they haven’t already the problems with the advertisements interrupting their social endeavors and detracting from the website itself. It is why Facebook exists.

           Facebook is a very profitable company and one that is used internationally. Facebook will soon realize that if they don’t improve these issues then they will lose financial stability. That is one of the most important concepts of market economy in America, supply and demand.