Young people are turning their backs on Facebook, according to a new report.
Two million people under the age of 25 will stop using the social network this year, research firm eMarketer predicted.
Facebook has a “teen problem”, the company said, adding that it expects fewer and fewer young social media users to continue to use the site in the future.
Snapchat: How to use the new, redesigned version of the app
Show all 17
Snapchat: How to use the new, redesigned version of the app
1/17 Find your friends
When you swipe right on the main camera screen, you’ll come to the Friends page. This is where Stories, Snaps, messages and group chats are, but they’re no longer ordered chronologically. Instead, new Snaps and messages, and any new Stories that Snapchat thinks you’ll be interested in, will sit near top of the Friends page. If you’re struggling to find one of your friends, you can type their name into the search bar at the top of the screen. To make different types of content easier to find, Snapchat is adding three tabs to the Friends page – Stories, Groups and All.
2/17 Watch Stories
If one of your friends has posted a Story you haven’t yet watched, you’ll see a circular preview bubble to the left of their name. To watch the Story, tap the bubble. After you watch a friend’s Story, you’ll see a preview of another friend’s Story. You can tap the screen to watch it, swipe to skip it or swipe down to exit. To re-watch a friend’s Story after you’ve already seen it, you need to open their profile by tapping their bitmoji on the Friends page.
3/17 Post Stories
You can post your own Stories by taking a picture or recording a video on the main camera screen, then tapping the arrow in the bottom-right corner and selecting My Story. To check out your Story views and delete Snaps from your Story, you need to visit your Profile page. You can find it by going to the main camera page, hitting the profile picture immediately to the left of the Search bar at the top of the screen, and tapping the My Story panel.
4/17 Send Snaps
To send a Snap, take a picture or record a video on the main camera screen, tap the arrow in the bottom-right corner and choose your friends from the list. The eight people you interact with most on Snapchat sit at the top of the list.
5/17 Discover content
When you swipe left on the main camera screen, you’ll find the Discover page. Here’s where you can access Shows, content from publishers, Stories from people you follow – but aren’t friends with – and Snaps from creators, Snap Map and Our Story. To find something specific in Discover, use the Search bar at the top of the screen. To see less of a certain type of content here, you can tap and hold a tile and hit See Less Like This or Unsubscribe.
6/17 Mute friends
You can mute your friends without them realising, with Do Not Disturb. To enable it, just tap and hold the person or group you want to silence, select Settings from the popup menu and hit Do Not Disturb. You’ll no longer receive notifications from that conversation, but you’ll still be able to access it, check any unread messages and Snaps and send your own too.
7/17 Shoot longer Snaps
You can record up to 60 seconds of Snapchat footage with Multi-Snap (the previous limit was 10 seconds). All you need to do is tap and hold the circular Record button, and keep holding it for up to 60 seconds. Snapchat will split the footage into 10-second segments that you can edit individually, though your recording will play continuously when you send it to your friends or add it to your Story.
8/17 Draw with emoji
You can draw with emoji rather than regular digital brushstrokes by tapping the pen icon after you’ve shot a snap and then hitting the symbol under the colour palette.
9/17 Build Geofilters
You can create your own Geofilters, for occasions like weddings and birthdays, or even for places that are special to you. Go to Settings, hit On-Demand Geofilters and choose when and where you’d like it to appear.
10/17 Use multiple filters
Once you’ve applied a filter to your snap, tap and hold the screen with one finger and swipe with another to layer another filter on top of it.
11/17 Save data
You can reduce the amount of data Snapchat munches through by enabling Travel Mode. Find it by going to Settings and tapping Manage Preferences.
12/17 Understand emoji
From here, you can also learn what those emoji that appear alongside your friends’ names mean. You can change the ones you don’t like by tapping them.
13/17 Understand message types
It’s also useful to understand what Snapchat’s different-coloured arrows and squares mean, so you’ll no longer be unsure whether you can open a certain message in public or not.
14/17 Collect trophies
You can find out how many Snapchat trophies you’ve earned by going to your Profile page and tapping the Trophies button. You can unlock more by trying out new things with the app.
15/17 Access Snap Map
You can access the controversial Snap Map, which shows you where in the world your friends are, by pinching the main camera screen. You can also hide yourself from fellow Snapchat users by tapping the Settings icon and enabling Ghost Mode.
16/17 Discover new music
You can Shazam a song within Snapchat by tapping and holding the camera screen. Once it identifies it, you can share the song with your friends.
17/17 Get new features early
You can get access to new and experimental features before regular Snapchat users by joining the Snapchat beta. In the Settings menu, tap Join Snapchat Beta.
1/17 Find your friends
When you swipe right on the main camera screen, you’ll come to the Friends page. This is where Stories, Snaps, messages and group chats are, but they’re no longer ordered chronologically. Instead, new Snaps and messages, and any new Stories that Snapchat thinks you’ll be interested in, will sit near top of the Friends page. If you’re struggling to find one of your friends, you can type their name into the search bar at the top of the screen. To make different types of content easier to find, Snapchat is adding three tabs to the Friends page – Stories, Groups and All.
2/17 Watch Stories
If one of your friends has posted a Story you haven’t yet watched, you’ll see a circular preview bubble to the left of their name. To watch the Story, tap the bubble. After you watch a friend’s Story, you’ll see a preview of another friend’s Story. You can tap the screen to watch it, swipe to skip it or swipe down to exit. To re-watch a friend’s Story after you’ve already seen it, you need to open their profile by tapping their bitmoji on the Friends page.
3/17 Post Stories
You can post your own Stories by taking a picture or recording a video on the main camera screen, then tapping the arrow in the bottom-right corner and selecting My Story. To check out your Story views and delete Snaps from your Story, you need to visit your Profile page. You can find it by going to the main camera page, hitting the profile picture immediately to the left of the Search bar at the top of the screen, and tapping the My Story panel.
4/17 Send Snaps
To send a Snap, take a picture or record a video on the main camera screen, tap the arrow in the bottom-right corner and choose your friends from the list. The eight people you interact with most on Snapchat sit at the top of the list.
5/17 Discover content
When you swipe left on the main camera screen, you’ll find the Discover page. Here’s where you can access Shows, content from publishers, Stories from people you follow – but aren’t friends with – and Snaps from creators, Snap Map and Our Story. To find something specific in Discover, use the Search bar at the top of the screen. To see less of a certain type of content here, you can tap and hold a tile and hit See Less Like This or Unsubscribe.
6/17 Mute friends
You can mute your friends without them realising, with Do Not Disturb. To enable it, just tap and hold the person or group you want to silence, select Settings from the popup menu and hit Do Not Disturb. You’ll no longer receive notifications from that conversation, but you’ll still be able to access it, check any unread messages and Snaps and send your own too.
7/17 Shoot longer Snaps
You can record up to 60 seconds of Snapchat footage with Multi-Snap (the previous limit was 10 seconds). All you need to do is tap and hold the circular Record button, and keep holding it for up to 60 seconds. Snapchat will split the footage into 10-second segments that you can edit individually, though your recording will play continuously when you send it to your friends or add it to your Story.
8/17 Draw with emoji
You can draw with emoji rather than regular digital brushstrokes by tapping the pen icon after you’ve shot a snap and then hitting the symbol under the colour palette.
9/17 Build Geofilters
You can create your own Geofilters, for occasions like weddings and birthdays, or even for places that are special to you. Go to Settings, hit On-Demand Geofilters and choose when and where you’d like it to appear.
10/17 Use multiple filters
Once you’ve applied a filter to your snap, tap and hold the screen with one finger and swipe with another to layer another filter on top of it.
11/17 Save data
You can reduce the amount of data Snapchat munches through by enabling Travel Mode. Find it by going to Settings and tapping Manage Preferences.
12/17 Understand emoji
From here, you can also learn what those emoji that appear alongside your friends’ names mean. You can change the ones you don’t like by tapping them.
13/17 Understand message types
It’s also useful to understand what Snapchat’s different-coloured arrows and squares mean, so you’ll no longer be unsure whether you can open a certain message in public or not.
14/17 Collect trophies
You can find out how many Snapchat trophies you’ve earned by going to your Profile page and tapping the Trophies button. You can unlock more by trying out new things with the app.
15/17 Access Snap Map
You can access the controversial Snap Map, which shows you where in the world your friends are, by pinching the main camera screen. You can also hide yourself from fellow Snapchat users by tapping the Settings icon and enabling Ghost Mode.
16/17 Discover new music
You can Shazam a song within Snapchat by tapping and holding the camera screen. Once it identifies it, you can share the song with your friends.
17/17 Get new features early
You can get access to new and experimental features before regular Snapchat users by joining the Snapchat beta. In the Settings menu, tap Join Snapchat Beta.
For the first time, the majority of US internet users between the ages of 12 and 17 won’t use Facebook once a month this year, eMarketer said.
It added that, while 83 per cent of social network users aged 18-24 will use Facebook in 2018, its share will fall to 81.5 per cent by 2021.
The number of Facebook users in the US aged 11 and younger is also expected to decline by 9.3 per cent over the year.
eMarketer also expects the number of Facebook users aged 12-17 and 18-24 to decrease by 5.6 per cent and 5.8 per cent, respectively.
“This is the first time eMarketer has predicted a decline in the number of US Facebook users in those age groups,” the company said.
“Facebook has a ‘teen’ problem,” said Bill Fisher, eMarketer’s UK senior analyst. ”This latest forecast indicates that it’s more than a theory.”
The site’s overall user base continues to grow, however, thanks to its increasing popularity among older people.
“In general terms we expect social network users under age 24 to show declining interest in Facebook as time goes on,” Karin von Abrams, principal analyst at eMarketer, told The Independent.
“Facebook may have been central to defining the social media category, and it still has many uses. But younger consumers in particular are looking for something beyond utility.
“They want novelty and exclusivity too; the search for the latest buzz in social media will continue to lead them away from Facebook.”
eMarketer also expects the number of Facebook-nevers” – young people who don’t use Facebook, and have never used Facebook – to increase.
“This is a logical consequence of the ‘ageing’ of Facebook as a proposition and a well-known environment, and the inevitable emergence of newer social platforms offering the buzz of new features and functions,” von Abrams added.
“Many teens already prioritize social networks such as Instagram and Snapchat over Facebook, and that trend is bound to increase as ever-younger consumers join social media.”
Snapchat in particular could be set to gain from Facebook’s loss.
Around 43 per cent of social media users will use Snapchat this year, which eMarketer said is more than twice its penetration rate from three years ago.
“Snapchat’s popularity with teens and young adults has grown significantly since the platform first launched in 2011,” eMarketer said.
“Snapchat has also introduced a range of interactive features that have appealed to teen audiences, in turn driving up the user number.
“Conversely, that has arguably turned off older audiences who favor Facebook’s less complicated social network experience.”
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