Facebook conversations used in report on young people's attitude to money

Debt is one of the biggest concerns for young people

Facebook has its own payments service as part of Messenger (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic )

Facebook has released a white paper on what they know about young people and money, based on analysis of conversations and content on Facebook itself.

The research, reported by Buzzfeed, is to help financial services companies and marketing executives understand what people aged 24-35 think about money and debt.

Technology companies that offer bank transfers and stockbroking, for example, are queuing up to get young people to use their services, especially because young people are considered to be early adopters of new technology.

Those same technology companies are also big advertisers on Facebook. They include Venmo, an app that lets users split bills; Robinhood, a free stock trading app and Wealthfront, a way to manage investments online.

Facebook has its own payments service as part of Messenger, so it too has an interest in how young people think about money.

Facebook used survey data, Facebook’s Audience Insights tool and analysis of conversations and content on Facebook itself for the report. It found that two-thirds of US Facebook users in the US have been to university, more than half of them own a home and almost half of them have a household income over $75,000 (£52,000).

Debt

Debt is one of the biggest concerns for young people. Most think any kind of loan outside of student borrowing is risky.

Almost half the young people in the study defined success as being debt free. Being able to retire was seen as a measure of success by just 18 per cent.

That translated to young people’s attitude towards credit cards. Some 57 per cent “prefer to pay primarily with cash” rather than credit card and felt that credit cards worsened their financial situation.

Saving

More young people save than you might expect. But of the 85 per cent that do save, only 17 per cent said that they were saving to buy a home and 8 per cent for their retirement.

Most said they saved because it is the “responsible” thing to do. That view is 2.7 times more common among young people than the generation older than them, known as baby boomers.

Investing

Bad news for the companies hoping to persuade young people to invest: the research shows they are 1.6 times less likely than other generations to have any investments at all.

Half of respondents (54 per cent) said this was because they didn’t have the money to invest. Only a quarter said that they didn’t invest because they didn’t know how.

Gender

Woman are more likely than men to talk about their finances on Facebook, the research shows.

Unsurprisingly, young people are more likely to discuss financial issues on Facebook than older generations.