Social media platforms suffer short life spans. Indeed, it feels sometimes as though Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and their contemporaries are constantly fighting for survival, throwing elbows and knocking down competitors to live on another day. But on a global level, which platforms really hold up in the standings, and which are taking the hardest falls?
Professor Daniel Miller of University College London has taken a look at social media giant Facebook and, in a recent study, has pointed out the ways in which it might be losing the battle to stay alive.
Facebook has certainly been undergoing some major shifts recently, both in terms of usage and popularity. US District Judge Robert Sweet, for instance, has allowed plaintiffs to bring suit against Facebook and its banks over the 2012 IPO, saying the company should have disclosed its internal projections of how its future revenue would be negatively impacted by increased mobile usage. The case is just one more indicator of a rising mobile approach to social media.
Professor Miller is leading new analysis relating to these shifts in Facebook usage. His study, spanning eight countries and numerous cities, aims to articulate how Facebook is frequently used among teenagers: He calls teenagers the “engine” that had driven Facebook’s success but has since been “broken.” His report, titled the “Global Social Media Impact Study,” claims that Facebook for teenagers isn’t just on the downswing but is already “dead and buried.”
Indeed, the study seems to indicate that there is even a sense of embarrassment among teenagers who associate with it (if you remember Myspace, you’ve seen this movie before). Instead, Teens are gravitating to platforms such as Snapchat and Twitter, which operate primarily, if not solely, via mobile.
Facebook has had a long history of coming under fire for data gathering and privacy intrusion, but Miller’s study points away from those breaches as reasons for shifting usage. Rather, Facebook as a Web-centered platform is simply no longer as appealing to mobile-minded teens. The study admits, then, that Facebook might not be truly dead; it may just be changing its user base.
As Web and mobile media continue to change, studies like Miller’s will become crucial to understanding diversity of social media usage, Web habits and stock market results. As Facebook continues to get knocked down and get back up, it will be interesting to see how it will prolong its survival in 2014 – and how its competitors will continue to fight back.
Edited by
Blaise McNamee 
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