Why teens are tiring of Facebook

Facebook has become a social network that's often too complicated, too risky, and, above all, too overrun by parents to give teens the type of digital freedom they crave.

To understand where teens like to spend their virtual time nowadways, just watch them on their smartphones. Their world revolves around Instagram, the application adults mistook for an elevated photography service, and other apps decidely less old-fashioned than Mark Zuckerberg's kingdom.
And therein lies one of Facebook's biggest challenges: With more than 1 billion users worldwide and an unstated mission to make more money, Facebook has become a social network that's often too complicated, too risky, and, above all, too overrun by parents to give teens the type of digital freedom or release they crave.
For tweens and teens, Instagram -- and, more recently, SnapChat, an app for sending photos and videos that appear and then disappear -- is the opposite of Facebook: simple, seemingly secret, and fun. Around schools, kids treat these apps like pot, enjoyed in low-lit corners, and all for the undeniable pleasure and temporary fulfillment of feeling cool. Facebook, meanwhile, with its Harvard dormroom roots, now finds itself scrambling to keep up with the tastes of the youngest trendsetters -- even as it has a foothold on millions of them since it now owns Instagram.
Asked about the issue, a Facebook spokesperson would only say, "We are gratified that more than 1 billion people, including many young people, are using Facebook, to connect and share."
The data doesn't exist to slap a value on Facebook's teen problem. But we know -- from observing teens, talking to parents and analysts, and from a few company statements -- that age doesn't become Facebook with this group.
In recent weeks, Facebook has told us twice about its teen-appeal problem. When it filed its annual report, it warned investors for the first time that younger users are turning to other services, particularly Instagram, as a substitute for Facebook.
Then, earlier this week, Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman admitted that Instagram, an application he described as popular among the "younger generation," is a "formidable competitor" to Facebook. Which seems odd until you realize that the profit-hungry Facebook isn't yet making a dime from Instagram.

"Facebook is a very young company in terms of the age of our employees, and I am hopeful that continues to be an asset for us in terms of having our finger on the pulse of what matters to that particular constituency of users and how we can provide products to satisfy them."
Put that way, Facebook's saving grace might be that its employees are also tiring of Facebook