Facebook might be losing its hold over American teens though it continues to mesmerize the adults.
According to the latest research published by Pew Research Center, 71 percent of U.S. adults who get online regularly are on Facebook. Last year the same research reported the figure to be 67 percent.
Facebook, the world's largest social network with 1.19 billion users, also boasts the highest levels of daily usage. Sixty three percent of Facebook users visit it, regularly among which 40 percent logged multiple times a day.
However, these figures are comforting for Facebook, only if adults are considered. Among teens, the Menlo Park-based social network is relentlessly losing the charm, thanks to apps like Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp.
"Facebook is the dominant social networking platform in the number of users, but a striking number of users are now diversifying onto other platforms," the Pew study noted.
"Pinterest holds particular appeal to female users (women are four times as likely as men to be Pinterest users), and LinkedIn is especially popular among college graduates and Internet users in higher-income households."
A recent European study even concluded that teens felt embarrassed to even be associated with Facebook. "What we've learned from working with 16-18 year olds in the UK is that Facebook is not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried," Daniel Miller, professor of material culture at University College London, wrote in a blog post. "Mostly they feel embarrassed even to be associated with it." Miller is the lead anthropologist of the ongoing 15-month study on the impact of social media being funded by European Union.
"In response, the young are moving on to cooler things. Instead, four new contenders for the crown have emerged: Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp," he added.
According to Pew's report, the other top four social networks in terms of usage after Facebook were LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram. The social network for professionals, LinkedIn, was able to record 2 percent jump from 20 percent to 22 percent this year.
Unexpectedly, Pinterest, with a 6 percent increased usage (from 15 percent to 21 percent), vaulted over Twitter to become the third top most used social network. Twitter, despite its effort to create more engagement (like Twitter Music), was able to grow by only two percentage points to 18 percent, followed by Instagram, which grew by 13 percent to 17 percent. Google+ was not included in the study.
