Are Teens Backing Out Of Facebook?

The Zuckerberg owned social network, Facebook, has been gaining popularity over the years. Teenagers especially, are seen in huge numbers logging in to facebook to update their status almost every minute of their life. Facebook has taken up most of their lives and they don’t seem to find any other source of entertainment than be on facebook and sharing updates. Wait a minute. This is what was happening till last year. Is it the same even now? I don’t think so.

In a recent poll in the US, majority of the teenagers seemed to hate Facebook now. They feel like it has been taking up too much of their lives and they are left with nothing else to enjoy. Most of the teens had initially joined Facebook just to post their latest pics, share updates and talk things that they couldn’t normally do at home. They would lash out their little secrets which they had been hiding from parents, update relationship status and live a totally different life in the social network. But with the current trend of all uncles and aunties joining Facebook, the teens seem to have lost their privacy. They are now scared to post anything or be tagged by anyone in Facebook. With the advanced features and updates from Facebook, they really cannot keep a thing a secret anymore. The minute they are tagged, some relative or parent, among all other friends in their list, is notified of the same and they are sure to be questioned about it. But this alone is not the reason for teens backing out in the recent past.

When asked around, some teenagers mentioned that the use of Facebook has been completely destroyed and that people use Facebook just for time pass. Most of the teens are overwhelmed by the way people update every silly thing like “Good Morning”, or “Brushing my teeth” and the like. They believe that socializing is no more the aim of the users in Facebook. Getting maximum number of likes and comments is what most of the users target now. It is more of a contest out there rather than building network and having fun. If they don’t get likes for a picture or comment you get upset and they try to post something more out of the way. Initially everyone took it as fun but as things went into the competition and popularity mode teens started feeling weary about it and took a backward step.

Self-realization is another wing which pulled the teens away.  Earlier they would be carried away with Facebook and would not even realize how many hours they had actually been whiling away the time. But with age, the teens have matured and they have come to a realization point where Facebooking looks like a “simple waste of time”.

In spite of people being weary about Facebook, we do not see any reduction in the number of users. People seem to be bored with the whole idea but they are so used to being on the site that they just cannot come out of it. Hope Facebook looks into this and brings in newer ideas which can keep the users engaged and actually love being engaged in it.