I still remember the day I created my Facebook account back in 2008 and spent my days writing on my friends’ Walls. It’s been over a decade since then, and while Facebook is still around, I don’t remember the last time I used it. However, there are a few things Facebook could do to get my generation to start using the platform again.
I Feel Like an Outsider on Facebook
Back in 2008, when I joined Facebook, the majority of its audience was young. Whenever I used to meet my friends, we often talked about it and complained to them about why they hadn’t yet replied to my messages on Facebook. However, things changed with time, and Facebook became popular among other age groups. And now, in 2024, I rarely find young people talking about Facebook. Instead, I often find my parents and people older than me talking about it.
According to a survey done by the Pew Research Center on 1,322 American teens in 2022, only 32% use the Facebook app. The number is very surprising, as according to a survey done by the same company back in 2015, 71% of teens were using the Facebook app. This clearly shows that the young audience has totally lost interest in Facebook.
What’s more surprising is that Facebook is still gaining its audience overall. In fact, they currently have more than three billion active users. However, most of them are not of my generation. Only 22.6% of Facebook daily users are in the 18 to 24 age group. This lack of a young audience on Facebook makes me feel like an outsider on the platform.
A primary factor contributing to Facebook’s decline among younger users is the rise of other social media platforms. When Facebook launched, it was one of a kind. None of the apps available at that time offered the same services. But now, there are a variety of social media apps on the market that offer the same or even better features than Facebook. Because of this, the market share has been divided among all the social media apps, and the bad news for Facebook is that the majority of the market share doesn’t favor it.
One of Facebook’s main competitors is Instagram. While both belong to the same company, Meta, the latter is literally the home of the young audience. Research shows that two out of every three people with an Instagram account are between 18 and 34 years old.
If Instagram wasn’t enough, Facebook is also facing tough competition from TikTok. Its popularity is also very similar to Instagram’s among young people. About 70.1% of all TikTok users are between 18 and 34, which again means that two out of every three TikTok users are young.
How Facebook Can Win Me Back
It’s time to look at the things Facebook can do to win me and other young audiences like me back.
Simplify the User Interface
One of the most basic yet important things I want from Facebook is to simplify its user interface. While some of you might disagree with me because how good an app’s interface looks depends on the user’s perspective, unfortunately for me, the current Facebook interface is very cluttered.
For example, the current Facebook Home feed contains everything. From posts shared by friends, videos, and images posted by accounts you follow, friend suggestions, ads, Reels, and all the other stuff you find on Facebook are available on the Home feed. This makes the Home feed very cluttered.
I want Facebook to keep the Home feed only for showing posts from accounts you follow. It could create an entirely new tab for showing content posted by our friends on Facebook. Also, I don’t need Meta AI suggestions in every video I watch. It’s like Facebook is forcefully suggesting that they have an AI product, and I should try it.
The old, simple Facebook interface was great when everything was very simple. There were only a few tabs, including notifications, messaging, and friends. Now Facebook has introduced multiple other options, like Marketplace, Videos, Ad Center, Gaming, and Reels.
In addition to all that, Facebook is promoting videos like crazy. Maybe they want to increase the time we spend on the platform. The Home feed suggests more videos than regular posts, and the weird thing is that this is happening even though it has a dedicated Video tab that was introduced specifically for showing videos.
I get that people’s tastes have changed, and they now want to watch more videos than regular posts. But I would prefer it if Facebook only showed videos in the Video tab and kept the Home feed for regular posts, which is what Facebook was originally famous for.
Stop Showing Irrelevant Content
As mentioned earlier, Facebook has started prioritizing video content over other types of content on the platform. While this is generally fine, sometimes it leads to the promotion of irrelevant videos.
For example, I used to watch clips from the TV series Friends on Facebook, but suddenly, the platform started showing me WWE content. This happened without me searching for anything related to WWE on Facebook or any of Meta’s other platforms like Instagram or Threads. This isn’t just happening to me. My mother used to use Facebook to watch cooking videos, but now Facebook suggests her political videos.
It seems like Facebook is trying to expose users to different types of content to see what they like. If people enjoy the new content, Facebook can show them more videos on that topic, increasing the time spent on the platform and ultimately boosting Facebook’s revenue. However, this isn’t what I want from Facebook. If I want to explore new content, I will search for it myself. Please stop suggesting irrelevant videos to me.
Introduce Facebook Exclusive Features
One of the primary reasons behind Instagram’s popularity is that it has many exclusive features. For instance, some various stickers and filters are exclusive to the platform. Also, if not exclusive, Instagram is often the first platform to introduce a feature. For example, the Reels feature was first introduced on Instagram and was later brought to Facebook.
Ever since Instagram’s launch, Facebook has always been Meta’s second priority. When was the last time you heard that Meta was introducing a feature that would be exclusively available on Facebook? However, you will often hear this news about Instagram.
To grab the attention of the young audience, it has become more important than ever for Meta to introduce features that are exclusive to Facebook. This way, users will be excited to try out that feature on Facebook instead of trying it on any other platform.
Merge Facebook and Messenger
It’s not that I don’t contact my friends on Facebook anymore. But after Messenger was introduced, I uninstalled the Facebook app and started using the Messenger app for messaging my friends. While Meta probably introduced Messenger as just another app under its name, it has now become the reason why many people have uninstalled the Facebook app.
One of the main purposes of Facebook was to help you connect with your friends through messaging, but after introducing the Messenger app, Meta has completely eliminated this use case. If you used the Facebook app solely to contact friends, you can uninstall the Facebook app and use the Messenger app instead.
My recommendation to Meta would be to merge the Facebook and Messenger apps. This way, even if a user is using the platform only to send and receive messages, they will be required to use the Facebook app instead of uninstalling it and using the Messenger app exclusively.
These were some of the things Facebook could do to win back a young audience like me. However, the abovementioned points are the areas I think would help Facebook regain its young audience. Most probably, as a young audience, you might be looking for something else from Facebook.
Another important thing to remember is that no matter what Facebook does, it’s up to the audience whether they want to keep a 20-year-old platform still relevant or forget about it and focus on similar options.
