Internal documents show Facebook is struggling to attract American users under the age of 30, with US teenage users declining by 13% since 2019

The world's largest social network is internally grappling with an existential crisis: an aging user base — Earlier this year …

The Verge 2021-10-25 Alex Heath

Context & Ripple Effects

Facebook’s youth-engagement problem predates the newly disclosed documents: earlier US data showed broad usage declines and a particularly sharp loss among 12-to-34-year-olds. The latest figures make the issue more acute by showing a continued drop in teenage time spent on Facebook alongside the decline in teenage users.

The company’s internal concern is also visible in Instagram’s strategy: it has directed most of its annual marketing budget toward teenagers to protect its younger-user pipeline. That makes Facebook’s difficulty attracting under-30 Americans a portfolio problem, not simply a mature-product slowdown.

First-order effects

Facebook faces a shrinking pool of US teenage users and lower engagement among young Americans, weakening its ability to refresh the audience as existing users age.
Instagram becomes more important to Facebook’s parent company as the service explicitly targeted at retaining younger users while Facebook struggles with the same demographic.

Second-order effects

Snapchat and Instagram benefit from Facebook’s youth shortfall because earlier coverage already projected their US user growth while Facebook was losing users under 25.
Facebook’s product and marketing teams are pushed to prioritize formats and acquisition efforts that can arrest youth disengagement, rather than relying on the legacy social graph alone.

Third-order effects

If the pattern persists, Meta’s consumer strategy will increasingly depend on moving younger audiences through Instagram rather than rebuilding Facebook as their default social network.
The broader social-platform market is separating into aging incumbent audiences and youth-oriented services, making demographic retention a central competitive asset.

The trend: Social networks are increasingly competing for a durable youth pipeline as Facebook’s US audience ages and engagement migrates toward younger-facing products.

Discussion

@reckless Nilay Patel on x
The kids don't like Facebook and don't want to use it, and that has Facebook running scared. @alexeheath reports from internal docs: https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@jeffnolan Jeff Nolan on x
No shit Sherlock. This age demo is all about Snap. Instagram sure, to some degree... but Snap is where the majority of their time is being spent. And TikTok. https://twitter.com/...
@mattrosoff Matt Rosoff on x
From a $FB shareholder's perspective, this is probably the most damning revelation in the Facebook Papers. Insta troubles particularly. https://twitter.com/...
@venkatananth Venkat Ananth on x
Definitely worth reading this by @alexeheath on Facebook's existential problems, especially around younger users and an ageing user base. https://www.theverge.com/...
@mattnavarra Matt Navarra on x
An internal presentation by Facebook researchers to platform execs showed new account registrations for users under 18 were down 26% from the previous year in the app's five top countries https://www.theverge.com/...
@thekenyeung Kenyeung Eth on x
Facebook is now apparently this in social media. https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
Yes this is a real slide from an internal Facebook presentation earlier this year https://twitter.com/...
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
My first story based on the Facebook Papers: Internal company documents show how the company sees its aging user base as an existential threat to the long-term health of its business https://www.theverge.com/...
@adriennelaf Adrienne LaFrance on x
I've spent the past several weeks reading the Facebook Papers, a gigantic collection of internal documents from Facebook unlike anything I've encountered. A few observations: (1/8) https://www.theatlantic.com/ ...
@juliettekayyem Juliette Kayyem on x
As Facebook releases show, FB had put in place strong anti-disinformation filters during the election. They mostly worked. It then loosened them, as if they didn't need to be permanent, and its own internal reviews showed that the platform was then supporting the 1/6 campaign. ht…
@mariannaspring Marianna Spring on x
The big takeaway from this latest round of documents - Facebook employees raise the alarm about harm caused by the social media sites, but policy decisions don't always appear to reflect that. https://www.nbcnews.com/...
@markscott82 Mark Scott on x
@Facebook @JohnHendel .@Ali_Lev looked at how FB was caught wrong-footed when rioters attacked Capitol Hill. The company was not ready to tackle harmful content that didn't technically break FB's rules https://www.politico.com/...
@ali_lev Alexandra S. Levine on x
NEW- Much of what was spreading on Facebook on Jan. 6 fell into a category of problematic content that the company itself has said it doesn't yet know how to tackle: Posts delegitimizing U.S. election results. Here's how engineers were left scrambling: https://www.politico.com/..…
@leah_nylen @leah_nylen on x
The Facebook Paper: @Ali_Lev takes a deep dive into how the company missed Jan. 6 https://www.politico.com/...
@michaeljstern1 Michael J. Stern on x
Facebook is interested in the income they generate for themselves, and they are willing to let harm come to the country in order to increase their profits. https://www.cnn.com/...
@justinhendrix Justin Hendrix on x
One of the weirdest things (in the @donie et al report) is this image. What a strange illustration. https://www.cnn.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@sal19 Sal Rodriguez on x
Facebook Friday News Dump: Facebook whistleblower releases documents to multiple news outlets showing company knows the harm it causes https://www.cnbc.com/...
@benswasey Ben Swasey on x
This is really alarming. A Facebook experiment found that within just a week, it was suggested that a test user — “a conservative mom in the US south” — follow a QAnon page. by @shannonpareil/@BobbyAllyn: https://www.npr.org/... https://twitter.com/...
@kurtwagner8 Kurt Wagner on x
NEW story w/ @damclaugh: Internal docs and research show Facebook isn't just losing popularity with teens. It's losing popularity with those under 30. They're spending less time, creating fewer posts + sending fewer messages. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@carlquintanilla Carl Quintanilla on x
The internal documents showed “a troubling trend that seemed to be accelerating: Facebook was losing popularity with teens and young adults.” (via @business) $FB https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@kurtwagner8 Kurt Wagner on x
FB's teen issues have been well documented. But historically, most teens who joined IG would “age up” to Facebook by age 19 or 20. That's no longer happening. Internal research shows “aging up” is taking longer (e.g. 24 or 25 years) old if at all From an internal report: https://…
@micheleboldrin Michele Boldrin on x
Not a good week for FB. I hope it gets worse and worse week after week :) https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@jedimarkus77 @jedimarkus77 on x
Forgive me for sounding not-bearish on the Book of Face but hasn't this been a narrative for a looooooooong time? Maybe the acceleration rate is the new story... Zuck can just claim “transitory” right? $FB https://twitter.com/...
@martinsfp Martin Sfp Bryant on x
“The declines among teens and young adults on Facebook have been almost invisible to outsiders. Facebook doesn't break down its user numbers by age group, and it has evaded questions from Wall Street analysts” https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@lisaabramowicz1 Lisa Abramowicz on x
Researchers found that “time spent” by U.S. teenagers on Facebook was down 16% year-over-year, and that young adults in the U.S. were also spending 5% less time on the social network. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@adriennelaf Adrienne LaFrance on x
These documents leave little room for doubt about Facebook's crucial role in advancing the cause of authoritarianism in America and around the world. (5/8)
@elcush Ellen Cushing on x
I combed through thousands of pages of internal Facebook documents. My overwhelming takeaway: The hate, abuse, and misinformation we see in the U.S. is only a fraction of what the ~90 percent of Facebook users in the rest of the world experience. https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... …
@ali_lev Alexandra S. Levine on x
From @POLITICO's antitrust guru, @Leah_Nylen: Facebook outwardly portrays itself as locked in fierce competition with rivals like YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat. But internal documents show the company knows it dominates the arenas central to its fortunes: https://www.politico.com/…
@leah_nylen @leah_nylen on x
The Facebook Papers: the inimitable @birnbaum_e looked at how Facebook's DC public policy office weighs in on key debates https://www.politico.com/...
@yappelbaum Yoni Appelbaum on x
“The Facebook we have in the United States is actually the platform at its best,” writes @elcush. Internal documents show that elsewhere in the world, its trade-offs and mistakes can have deadly consequences. https://www.theatlantic.com/ ...
@leah_nylen @leah_nylen on x
As the antitrust/competition reporter, my biggest question was: what is Facebook saying internally about its rivals and is that any different from what it says to the regulators looking into its business practices?
@leah_nylen @leah_nylen on x
POLITICO was one of the news organizations who got access to the documents from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. We've spent the past few weeks poring over them.

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