The Facebook generation is fed up with Facebook.
That’s according to a report released by the Pew Research Center, which surveyed 802 teens between the ages of 12 and 17 last September to produce a 107-page report on their online habits.
Pew’s findings suggest teens’ enthusiasm for Facebook is waning, lending credence to concerns, raised by the company’s investors and others that the social network may be losing a crucial demographic that has long fueled its success.
Facebook has become a “social burden” for teens, write the authors of the Pew report. “While Facebook is still deeply integrated in teens’ everyday lives, it is sometimes seen as a utility and an obligation rather than an exciting new platform that teens can claim as their own.”
Facebook, teens say, has been overrun by parents, fuels unnecessary social “drama” and gives a mouthpiece to annoying oversharers who drone on about inane events in their lives.
“Honestly, Facebook at this point, I’m on it constantly but I hate it so much,” one 15 year-old girl told Pew during a focus group.
On the whole, teens’ usage of social media seems to have plateaued, and the fraction of those who check social sites “several times a day” has stayed steady at around 40 percent since 2011.
