Are people leaving Facebook? It depends, but some young users call it 'cluttered' and 'dated'
A slight decline in daily active Facebook users for the first time in its history, mentioned in parent company Meta Platforms' earnings report on Wednesday, sent the stock into a nose dive Thursday.
However, looking deeper into the user numbers, their decline is not necessarily as dramatic as investors reflected. The losses were greatest in Africa, India and Latin America, suggesting that Facebook is nearing global saturation.
Usage of Facebook's family of apps – Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp – grew modestly. And the number of monthly active users for Facebook still rose slightly from its previous quarter.
That could indicate that people are still using Facebook on a monthly basis but possibly spending less time on it, or that the role Facebook plays in people's lives has evolved over time.
That's particularly the case with the younger generation as Facebook increasingly struggles to pry millennial and Gen Z users from hipper, splashier rivals such as short-form video service TikTok.
Facebook is pouring its energy into its TikTok clone Reels to try to better engage younger users as it pivots from appealing to older users to serving young adults as its "north star."
Whether that's working remains to be seen. Most younger people view Facebook as an occasional place to drop in, not their go to.
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Younger social media users interviewed by Paste BN revealed that Facebook's presence in their lives has dramatically changed over time, going from a casual site used for social connection to a formal one full of ads and third-party content.
"In the past, Facebook was more for social connection. I would check Facebook Newsfeed very often to see what people have been up to, but now because it's so cluttered, I have to scroll a lot to even see people," says Sonali Dane, 25.
Dane emphasized that her "cluttered" feed was filled more with ads and memes as opposed to updates about real people in her life.
Brent Weisberg, 24, says he still goes on Facebook two to three times a day, but only for a few minutes and mainly to explore groups in the Chicago improv scene.
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The presence of older people in the site has also changed the culture of Facebook and his comfort in sharing particular details in his life, Weisberg says.
"As a kid, when all your Friends were of your same age, Facebook was new and shiny. It wasn't the domain of your grandma, and your grandma's friends and your great aunt," Weisberg says. "There's nothing that I feel comfortable saying that all those people would see."
Alexandra Yiannoutsos, 25, echoes Weisberg's sentiments, calling Facebook "dated" and "prone to vitriol."
Yiannoutsos, once an avid user in her teens, now only uses Facebook every few months and spends time on Instagram and Twitter as forums to socially connect and find out information.
"Our day-to-day stuff is more readily available on Instagram or Twitter," Yiannoutsos says.
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According to Meta's earnings report, despite the number of daily active users dropping for Facebook, the metric actually rose in its overall portfolio, which includes Instagram and WhatsApp, growing from 2.81 billion to 2.82 billion in the last quarter.
Not totally leaving Facebook
While people are leaving Facebook, it seems that they're still visiting and spending a lot of time on Facebook's other products for social connection and entertainment.
"The appeal of Instagram Stories has really kind of made people check Instagram a lot more," Dane says.
Jasper Cornett, 25, says he only uses Facebook to check notifications from his mom and remember people's birthdays. He now uses Twitter and Instagram to find "cool art accounts and funny people," Cornett says.
Facebook has been putting in large efforts to make its platform more relevant to young people, rolling out 3D Avatars in its metaverse and focusing on creator-generator content like its competitor TikTok.
In a Q3 2021 earnings call, Zuckerberg emphasized that the company had become too focused on serving a large audience rather than what he views as their core user base.
"We are retooling our teams to make serving young adults their north star, rather than optimizing for the larger number of older people," Zuckerberg said in the call.
However, that process and realignment could take years to materialize, Zuckerberg said in the call.
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Contributing: Brett Molina, Jessica Guynn
Michelle Shen is a Money & Tech Digital Reporter for Paste BN. You can reach her @michelle_shen10 on Twitter.