Teens' 'Like' For Facebook on Decline, Says Report

Several years ago, Facebook became the new MySpace when it rose to where it is now: the top social networking site. But results of a survey measuring teenage interest in social networks indicates that now Facebook might have to be the one to figure out how to stay cool with the younger crowd.

The new research from Piper Jaffray, which focuses on the teen market, reports that 33 percent of 5,200 teens surveyed listed Facebook as their most important social network. Though that number is still good enough to make Facebook number one in the survey, the site has dropped 9 percentage points since the fall 2012 report, in which 42 percent of teens rated it their most important social network.

Twitter was ranked second, with 30 percent of teens saying it's their most important social tool. Instagram and Tumblr received 17 and 4 percent of the vote, respectively. Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr also each enjoyed increases over fall 2012. The bright spot for Facebook may be that Instagram, which the company purchased for $1 billion last year, showed a 5 percent jump -- the largest increase of all the social networks.

Besides Facebook, the only other service to show a decrease in interest was Google+, which was down to 5 percent from 6 percent in Fall 2012. Pinterest was unchanged at 2 percent.

Though Twitter is a close second behind Facebook in this survey, teen interest seems to be splintering among a number of other services. A recent Reuters report found that many teens are using messaging services like Kik and Snapchat in lieu of Facebook.

:story: Yahoo News