Are 16-24 year olds abandoning social media?

Sep 15, 2009•Blog Posts•Online & Digital Media•Social Media• by author

Nancy B.

Just recently it was believed that the explosive growth of social media sites like Facebook and MySpace was caused by a growth in the 16-24 year old demographic of users. However, recent reports are taking this idea back saying the younger demographic is, in fact, decreasing on social networking sites. This is not to say that the younger demographic is abandoning social media completely, but the number of youths who have a profile on a social networking site has dropped for the first time – from 55% at the start of last year to 50% this year.

The head of Ofcom’s strategy team, Peter Philips, states, “There is nothing to suggest overall usage of the internet among 15-to 24-year-olds is going down…data suggests they are spending less time on social networking sites.” In an interview with The Guardian, James Thickett, director of market research at Ofcom, said that while older people seemed to be embracing social networking sites, Facebook and MySpace remained immensely popular with children under 16. Thickett said, “Clearly take-up among under 16-year-olds is very high … so we cannot say for certain whether this is people in a certain age group who are not setting up social networking profiles or whether it’s a population shift which is reflecting people getting older and having a social networking profile that they set up two years ago. The main point is the profile of social networking users is getting older.”

So, while there may be a dip in the overall usage of social media by the 16-24 year old demographic, this could be attributed to the overall population aging. Facebook launched in February 2004 (MySpace, January 2004), and a majority of the initial users were high school and college aged. By 2009 the bulk of this initial group of Facebook (and MySpace) users will have transferred over to the 25-34 demographic. However, regardless of the ebb and flow of the 16-24 demographic, social media remains immensely popular with the younger crowd. Facebook remains a favorite across the board, and new sites like Bebo and Twitter are springing up and gaining popularity quickly. Add to that the influx of older demographics on these websites and social media has a cozy spot in the future of Internet usage.