In principle not a new trend: Many young people do not have a Facebook account or are turning their backs on the platform. Instead, Instagram is still very popular with them and the hype about the Chinese app TikTok has long since picked up speed among young people in Germany.
(Symbol photo: dpa)
ALSFELD – Almost two out of three Germans use Facebook, that’s 63 percent. Sounds like a lot. But Facebook is losing users. There are fewer and fewer younger visitors to the website in particular.
This is proven by an evaluation on the Statista website, where all kinds of statistics can be viewed. According to this, the percentage of 16 to 19 year olds has dropped from 68 percent to 36 percent. But Facebook is not only losing users here. The number is falling in almost every age group. The most loyal are the 30 to 39 year olds. Here the number has decreased by only twelve percent. Also interesting: More men than women use Facebook. The biggest difference here is made by the group of people between the ages of 23 and 34: Here, 0.8 million more men than women use the social media platform.
But why is Facebook losing so many users compared to other social networks? The Trustpilot rating platform provides the answer. Of 5593 responses to the question of how satisfied users are with Facebook, 49 percent were “unsatisfactory”. Many respondents complain that they are not allowed to express their opinions freely. They were unnecessarily banned, harassed or insulted. Some users said: “Facebook is an absolute waste of time, critical comments are deleted and the author is blocked like in kindergarten” or “If you report more hate comments than below the belt: no violation. And if you are unlucky, you will be banned yourself if you report something like that (in a decent tone). ”Or in a nutshell:“ Bad. Intransparent and not to be recommended. ”Facebook has apparently not commented on this.
But what are the alternatives? Above all, “Diaspora” is mentioned here again and again. Diaspora, like Facebook, is a social media platform where you can share reports, pictures and other content, and just like Facebook, there is also a chat function. However, according to the Diaspora, you can “keep your data” on this platform, since this is open source software that is also free of advertising.
But what if you don’t need something like Facebook? Young people in particular are increasingly using the TikTok video platform. On this app you can post short videos that others can watch, like or share. You can follow other users. The more followers you have, the more “famous” you become. With around 80 million followers, Charli D’Amelio is one of the most famous users. Twitch, a live streaming portal, is also gaining in users. According to the statistics portal, around 929 million visits were made in September 2020. And Instagram & Co. are of course still in the running. Although the two aforementioned apps are a huge difference to Facebook, they seem to be gaining popularity. The younger generation does not seem to miss the chat function that is missing on TikTok. On TikTok, the only way to get in touch with other people is through the comment function. There is a chat function on Twitch, sometimes even with video, but there seem to be regular problems there.
To cut a long story short: Facebook may not be what it used to be, but it is still used by many people every day.
A contribution from the Presse AG at the Albert Schweitzer School: By Annkathrin Lambertz
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