Over at Balloon Juice, mistermix highlights this paragraph from a story about bullying at an Ohio high school:
At Hudson High School, Facebook is yesterday’s news — “Most of Facebook is just people saying, ‘Is anyone still on Facebook?'” one student says — and increasingly, students are interacting on Twitter. In the five months since it was created, an account named Hudson Confessions (@HudConfessions) has amassed more than a thousand followers, or about two-thirds of the size of Hudson’s current student body.
Hmmm. Just a year or two ago, I remember reading that despite its aura of coolness, kids didn’t really use Twitter much. It was mostly us oldsters who used it, while Facebook reigned supreme among teens. But mistermix says that although the lamestream media doesn’t report much about Facebook’s decline, “it’s been true for a while.”
But I want numbers. I want Science™. What is America’s youth really up to? A Pew report from last May has this to say:
Teen Twitter use has grown significantly: 24% of online teens use Twitter, up from 16% in 2011….Focus group discussions with teens show that they have waning enthusiasm for Facebook, disliking the increasing adult presence, people sharing excessively, and stressful “drama,” but they keep using it because participation is an important part of overall teenage socializing.
So there you have it. Oddly enough, the social networking site beloved of political junkies and journalists is now spreading its tentacles into the Justin Bieber set. I’ll bet that’s not something that happens very often. For now, though, we old folks can pride ourselves on being social media trendsetters.
