Facebook Is Turning Off Teens

Facebook, once the dominate social network, is struggling to earn and retain teenage users, according to Pew Research Center. The organization found that Facebook ranks in the fourth popularity slot among teens, falling behind Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube. However, the social network does outrank Twitter and other services.

The data comes from a Pew Research Center survey in which US teens revealed which services they use and which one they use most often. Among those, YouTube takes the top slot with 85-percent of teens using it. Instagram comes in second at 72-percent, and Snapchat comes in third with 69-percent.

Snapchat, however, slightly outpaced YouTube in the "most often" used category at 35-percent versus 32-percent. Instagram earned only 15-percent of "most used" responses. Facebook, meanwhile, was only used by 51-percent of the teens surveyed, and only 10-percent of them say they use it most often.

Less popular were Twitter, Tumblr, and Reddit, which respectively earned 32-percent, 9-percent, and 7-percent of responses when teens were asked which services they use. However, very few say they use those platforms most often: Twitter took 3-percent, Reddit took 1-percent, and Tumblr took less than a single percentage point.

The survey questioned US teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17. The results highlight what everyone already knew: teens don't find Facebook as appealing at they once did, and Snapchat is currently at the top when it comes to youth popularity. Of note, Pew found that 95-percent of teenagers own or use a smartphone.

SOURCE: Pew Research Center IMAGE SOURCE: Unsplash, photographed by the folks at Thought Catalog.