Facebook was declared dead and buried !

Over the weekend Facebook was declared dead and buried among teens, but something far more interesting is going on with the site, even as its mojo is weakening among mobile-first teenagers.The weekend’s decline story was based on research from a UK academic  The story is more interesting than the simple notion of decline or desertion. Yes, teens make less use of Facebook than they used to. Parmy Olsen reported  on Forbes on where teens are headed to apart from Facebook – places like WhatsApp and Instagram. They are making more use of simple mobile messaging  apps  but they are still the single biggest user group on Facebook.
More interesting still, however, all other age groups are catching up. And why that’s interesting is because it illustrates that, around the world, people continue to increase their engagement with, and through, social media
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Whether in a mobile-first demographic or among older people, or in mobile-first parts of the world, the story of growth in social media is still the strongest narrative, according to Smith.
As an aside, social networking in business – the so-called social business phenomenon – has very weak penetration compared to social networks outside work.
Barely 1.2% of GlobalWebIndexes’ respondents acknowledge making use of social business tool Yammer, for example. But back to Facebook. Smith’s company GlobalWebIndex provided the following data.
From Q2 2012 to Q3 2013 the percentage of active users among 16 – 19 year olds fell from 62% to 52% (these are active users in the sense of having contributed content),  and among 20 – 24 year olds fell from 63% to 52%.
Now the interesting part. The percentage of active users among the 35 – 44 year old age group rose from 47% to 53%, among 45 – 54 year olds from 43% to 49%, and among 55 – 64 year olds from 39% – 45%.
The non-teen, non early twenties cohorts are making much more use of Facebook. The story is a strong one for Facebook, which has now become intimately entwined in the lives of people across all age groups, and increasingly among those who are more likely to have disposable income.he mature market is on trend to become the most active users of Facebook during 2014. It may be that Facebook wants to maintain its reputation as the cool place for young people to connect but that is clearly past. Mobile usage has encouraged people to migrate to other sites. But overall Facebook is cementing its position as the default setting in online relationships.
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