Only 14% of teens name Facebook as the top social network

Facebook is currently the most popular social network the world over but if you ask the teens, they may say differently. A recent survey by Investment Bank Piper Jaffray finds that Facebook is losing its charm among the teens while Instagram and Snapchat are fast growing in popularity.

The survey titled “Taking Stock With Teens” in which 6,200 teens with average age of 16 were surveyed, has found that only 14% of the US teenagers regarded Facebook as the “most important social network.” This was 23% last year and 33% in 2013 indicating that Facebook is fast losing popularity among the US teenagers.

So which social network is regarded by the teens as the best? Well, the Facebook owned Instagram was chosen as the top social network by 32% of the teens while 24% chose Twitter. Facebook with 14% came at third place closely followed by Snapchat with 13%.

Piper Jaffray releases this survey twice a year and it is closely watched on Wall Street. Companies use the findings to get an idea about teens’ spending pattern and brand preferences while investors use them for making their stock buying decisions.

Survey results released by Pew Research Center tell a different story. Their survey found Facebook to still be the top choice of teenagers with 71% teens aged between 13 and 17 using it. 52% of them used Instagram and 41% used Snapchat.

Only 14% of teens name Facebook as the top social network

Study Shows Heavy Facebook Usage Can Lead to Depression

A study recently reported that users who are accessing Facebook frequently are much likely to report feelings of depression. The study was conducted by surveying 736 college students from a large Midwestern university who used Facebook on an average of two hours every day. The students who took part of the survey are of average age of 19 and consisting of seventy-eight percent of white Americans and 68 percent are females.

Some of the survey questions indicate how much the participants use Facebook and what they do on the social network. On top of that there are also questions such as what is the rate that they agreed with statements which links to envy such as “I generally feel inferior to others” or “It somehow does not seem fair that some people seem to have all the fun”.  Furthermore, there are also questions which are linked to depression such as “I was bothered by things that usually don’t bother me” or “I talked less than usual”.

The researchers concluded that despite heavy usage of Facebook does not linked directly to depression, however,  frequent users who experienced feeling of envy is more likely to correspond to statements which linked to depression. One of the reasons could be that they are comparing their own lives with their friends’ photos of luxurious holidays or status updates about good news and so on.

The positive result of the study is that the users can avoid the negative impact of Facebook usage by the way they consume the information. As long as they think positive about it, then things should be alright. The research team published their result in February edition of the journal Computers in Human Behaviour.

Study Shows Heavy Facebook Usage Can Lead to Depression