Comments for Facebook's Own Estimates Show Declining Student Numbers; Now More Grandparents Than High School Users

Facebook's Own Estimates Show Declining Student Numbers; Now More Grandparents Than High School Users

2009-07-07T01:02:57Z

How fickle are kids these days? Just when all the grown ups started figuring out Facebook, college and high school users have declined in absolute number by 20% and 15% respectively in a mere six months, according to estimates Facebook provides to advertisers that were archived for tracking by an outside firm. Facebook users aged 55 and over have skyrocketed from under 1 million to nearly six million in the same time period. There are more Facebook users over 55 years old today than there are high school students using the site.

Grandma and Grandpa showed up to have a conversation, but Billy and Sally were gone. Facebook cannot be excited about this.

]]> The dramatic change in user demographics was picked up by iStrategyLabs today. Anyone can go through Facebook's self-serve advertising program and see the user demographics numbers the company estimates now; iStrategyLabs captured that data six months ago and saved it for comparison. The changes have been dramatic.

According to this data, from Facebook's own ad platform, there are actually fewer high school and college users on Facebook today than there were six months ago.

As you can see in the chart above, young people by age are up a small amount, but young people by school level are down. Users with undeclared education levels are way up, implying that many high school and college students may simply no longer be listing their schools at all on the site. That's a dramatic change too for a site that began as a network for college students. We wouldn't be surprised if Facebook stopped showing advertisers the number of high school and college students soon and relied only on the age distribution.

Who is the company that is presenting these historical numbers? A quick check around the web shows that iStrategyLabs is one of the top sponsors of the Apps for Democracy contest with the D.C. government and company CEO, Peter Corbett, as a judge for the Apps for America project with the Sunlight Foundation - those are some pretty good credentials when it comes to saving a set of numbers accurately for six months. The company's spreadsheet of Facebook data it's captured since October, 2007 is here.

Facebook's communication team told us in response to this comparison that those numbers are "rough, not actual" - but they are going to check on the historical numbers internally and get back to us. Given that the number of male users plus the number of female users adds up to a lower number than the number of users shown when no gender is selected in the advertising platform - we suspect that the numbers Facebook is showing its advertisers are very rough. Users cannot create an account without specifying one gender or another.

We can't help but wonder whether the kinds of privacy measures that Facebook is sticking its toe in the water with right now could have helped six months ago: letting messages be made visible only to limited groups of people instead of all messages going to all your Facebook connections no matter the context. Instead, Facebook seems determined to push everyone into making their content on the site more public, not less. That may not matter if the kids aren't around to be upset. Then the advertisers will be left pitching their products to senior citizen late adopters - and 35 to 54 year old users, now the biggest group on the site.

It's not a pretty picture, but we await further response from Facebook.

Comment from Alex Hayes on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T01:53:48Z

One has to wonder if that's b/c 55+ users are just joining the social media scene and FB is the new "place to be," whereas younger people have been involved for a while. Consequently, they are already on FB (in tens of millions) on MySpace, or elsewhere. In other words (and to use an expression those 55 plusers will understand), is this just a tempest in a teapot?

Comment from Mike on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T01:56:14Z

The data-gathering techniques used here are suspect, but let's say they're mostly right. Where are the 'kids' going? I doubt there's a large migration back to myspace. We need a meta tracking system that can visualize migration patterns between social networks.

Comment from Peter on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T01:59:13Z

Thanks for featuring our research, Marshall.

If you'd like any further substantiation regarding the historical data, you can see in the following post that I originally blogged about the January 2009 figures here (and had compared them to six months prior as well):

http://www.istrategylabs.com/2009-facebook-demographics-and-statistics-report-276-growth-in-35-54-year-old-users/

Lastly, just a quick point of fact...while I personally was a judge of Apps for America - iStrategyLabs (my company) is the creator of Apps for Democracy http://www.appsfordemocracy.org a campaign we do for the DC government.

Take care,

-Peter
http://www.twitter.com/corbett3000

Comment from jtop on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T02:04:20Z

Student will get older, right?

Comment from Peter on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T02:05:42Z

@Mike what's suspect about the data gathering method? I'm pulling info directly out of Facebook Social Ads targeting system...this is raw data provide by the source itself.

Regarding where the kids are going....my guess is they're using SMS, twitter, and something us old folks haven't heard about yet.

Comment from Vadim Lavrusik on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T02:10:11Z

Interesting since it started in college. Maybe it's not that "cool" when the g'parents are using it.

Comment from Tollie on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T02:11:16Z

Facebook is undergoing an identity crisis. They've been actively depreciating - for the worse - the idea of a profile (a user's "face"), and attempting to clone the twitter / friendfeed model.

It should be said that they're doing an OK job of cloning Friendfeed, but this is a betrayal against the desires of the its original audience, and likewise, it's no surprise they're less interested.

Facebook needs to quickly bring back and re-emphasize the features and usefulness of the old Home Feed (eg. detailed customization settings and friend discovery). The new "live stream" is neither live nor interesting (its cluttered with crappy applications), and in every way except for privacy controls, it's inferior to friendfeed.

Comment from fjpoblam on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T02:23:05Z

Youth is wasted on the young

Comment from Marshall Kirkpatrick on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T02:24:38Z

No, fjpoblam, I think these days Youth is wasted on Farm Town. :)

Comment from Sue John on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T02:33:40Z

I agree with Alex, there seems to be a growing number of the 55+ age group discovering Facebook and I think this demographic is growing every day. Whilst Facebook seems just as popular with the younger age group. My son, my niece, and the teenage kids of my friends, are all glued to Facebook.

In fact my son was mortified when his 70 year old grandparents joined Facebook last month and wanted to add him as a friend. I don't think his street cred would cope with having his grandparents on his Friends list lol

Comment from Sharon on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T02:40:27Z

Finally the kids are rebelling. Stay of facebook if you know what's good for you. Unless of course you plan to be on you best behavior for the rest of your life.

Comment from Peter on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T02:48:21Z

If anyone needs the excel file I used to create that graphic shown in the post (along with data going back to 10/22/07) you can find that here:

http://bit.ly/fbookdata

-Peter
http://www.twitter.com/corbett3000

Comment from Dave Morris on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T03:13:30Z

I don't see why facebook would not be happy with an increase in over 55's. You just might learn something from us oldies. We have a lot of experience to offer

Comment from Francine on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T03:15:11Z

Let's not overthink FB. Kids just move on. I'm more curious where they are moving to.

Comment from Marshall Kirkpatrick on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T03:17:31Z

Dave, that's well said. In every way but business it's not good for them, though. Everyone wants sexy 18 to 25 year olds with expendable income, insecurity and no appreciation for what's really meaningful in life. That's where the money is.

Comment from Aiden on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T03:37:01Z

That's exactly what I was going to say Marshall. Us 18-25 year old demographic are what all the companies are trying to get at.

And speaking as that demographic I have to say that what this article says doesn't really fit into what I've seen. While I agree with what Tollie said earlier and while many kids weren't happy with ANY of the changes facebook made it seems like none of my friends were mad enough to stop using it.

P.S. my mom added me to facebook and yes it is quite embarrassing :-P

Comment from Algernon on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T04:01:53Z

I thought they should have left it for students and college alumni only. It's original draw was it's closed community and, yes, elitism.

I understood when kids jumped ship from Myspace to Facebook, but where are these kids going? Twitter?

Comment from David Maurier on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T04:28:59Z

I think you need to consider the possibility that the observed “loss” of users that are in “High School” or “College” in July is motivated by graduation, not “flight”. This would be relatively straightforward to confirm, and hardly surprising; graphing the data as a time series might show sharp downward stairsteps in May and June as students graduate, and upticks in August and September as kids matriculate.

If that turns out to be the case, the data shows engagement rather than flight, and suggests that kids in those demographics not only use Facebook, but care enough about it to keep their demographic information current. Which all translates to more value for advertisers, rather than a cause for alarm.

Comment from Rob McNair-Huff on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T04:30:46Z

Another demographic switch. If not Facebook or MySpace, where are younger users moving now? What's next, say the fickle?

Comment from Beth Kanter on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T04:34:30Z

How does this news sync with the news in May that boomers were quitting FB in droves?
http://tinyurl.com/r5llax

Comment from cheryl lawson on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T05:01:08Z

While sitting at an AVP event a few months ago. I over heard a few "young" people discuss how appauled they were when their aunts and bosses were sending them friend requests on FB. Since most of them are posting drunk party pics, they idea of aunt karen seeing that and telling mom and dad is not appealing.

As older people migrate to Social sites the youth will migrate elsewhere!
@partyaficionado

Comment from Sean Quinn on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T05:19:34Z

I've seen nothing but youth surging to Facebook. Those who get it stay with it, and those who don't are like the Twitter users who come, join, and never update. Just from my knowledge of y'know...being a youth.

Comment from Eric Oltersdorf on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T07:30:30Z

"It's not a pretty picture, but we await further response from Facebook."

What's not a pretty picture? The end user for this product started skewing older and that's a terrible thing? Oh please, if you run a business you have to know who your clients are. Just because Facebook started out for a younger audience doesn't mean it should stay that way forever. One thing I've learned in business is adapt or die. They should accept this shift in client demographics and just roll with it.

Comment from Johan on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T07:47:39Z

Two comments:

* The "decline" of youth is in the percentage of total FB users, not in absolute numbers. Yes, partly it might be more hip to be where your parents/grandparents are not. But, to a very large extent I believe the explanation is saturation. The FB penetration in the younger age segment is most likely very high (see Swedish numbers here: http://thekillerattitude.com/2009/03/two-million-facebook-users-in-sweden.html) - a large portion of the youth already have FB, so the growth opportunity is not that big for that segment.

* Also, you note that "Given that the number of male users plus the number of female users adds up to a lower number than the number of users shown when no gender is selected in the advertising platform - we suspect that the numbers Facebook is showing its advertisers are very rough. Users cannot create an account without specifying one gender or another."
- Well, a while ago you where able to create FB accounts without specifying gender. And I don't think FB forces you to specify gender "afterwards", so the non-gender-specified-users are most probably users that signed up a while ago, with no gender specified.

Comment from Allen on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T09:14:22Z

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics!

You were on the right track with "implying that many high school and college students may simply no longer be listing their schools at all on the site."

The only conclusion that you might be able to draw from these numbers is that new users are less likely to share details.

You have to make a lot of assumptions to conclude that "Facebook's Own Estimates Show Declining Student Numbers [and there are] Now More Grandparents Than High School Users".

But good headline. I fell for it.

Comment from Darren Stuart on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T09:14:32Z

I think facebook should be excited by having older users.

These guys have much more money and can be targeted better for businesses that offer core products for that age group. A company like saga holidays would do good business I expect.

Comment from Steve on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T11:20:11Z

"Users with undeclared education levels are way up, implying that many high school and college students may simply no longer be listing their schools at all on the site."

That line says it all... Facebook have been de-emphasizing networks for a while now, and are due to remove them altogether soon. The undeclared education levels more than make up for these losses, and it's because students joining the site now are NOT encouraged to join their college network (the complete opposite of the early days when you HAD to join a college network using your college email address to even register for the site).

"Given that the number of male users plus the number of female users adds up to a lower number than the number of users shown when no gender is selected in the advertising platform - we suspect that the numbers Facebook is showing its advertisers are very rough. Users cannot create an account without specifying one gender or another."

That's actually not the case. Until about a year ago (maybe less), it was not required to specify your gender when registering. Facebook then began showing one of their message prompts on the home page asking users who has not done this to set their gender. I would imagine there were still a lot of people who just ignored this message which would account for the shortfall.

Comment from M. Jackson Wilkinson on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T11:43:28Z

Steve looks right. It's not that HS and college users are leaving the site -- far from it, since 0-17 grew by nearly a quarter, and 18-24 (the demo with the least expected growth) grew by five percent. Instead, these users are just less likely to declare their HS or college, which makes sense given the decreased emphasis on doing so.

Also, a quick (perhaps too quick) look at US census age numbers suggests that there's a significantly smaller population of 15-20 year olds coming up than there are right now, so we should expect slower growth. 17MM 18-24 year olds is already an enormous percentage of the 22MM 18-24 year olds available in the US, so growth has to be far more difficult there.

Comment from Scott on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T12:06:19Z

Younger generation moving away: Yes, they probably are moving to other services. They're probably tired of Facebook. They're probably just growing up and discovering FB isn't the end all be all of social networking. There's also a huge growth in Twitter that's continuing as 18 - 25 move from Facebook...coincidence?

According to a 2009 Nielsen Report people using Twitter tend to trend older: 42% of Twitter users are in the 35 - 49 age range. The next largest group are the 25 - 34 years olds making up 20% of users. What I'm suggesting here is that users moving out of college and into the workforce are noticing they're colleagues are using services like Twitter, end up spending less time on FB (also b/c FB is often blocked more so than Twitter), and as a result they drop their accounts on FB or stop using it all together.

With regards to the 55+ generation and FB, the jury is still out on whether FB likes that or not. It's apparent that they're new move to making more information public, "fanning a person," etc are all aimed at mimicking what Twitter is doing. They see they're original audience shifting away to a different service, so they're attempting to play in that same field.

However, I think Facebook should grab onto the 55+ market hitting their site. The "older" generation tends to be less finicky when it comes to social media and social networking (dropping in and out of services). They're also not typically associated with ease of change and prefer to use what works for them..."if it ain't broke, don't fix it." This is good for Facebook since they're starting to gain a larger audience that will probably NOT move away in the future. Also considering the large growth of 55+ approaching, they're going to be gaining even more of that same market. And if I know my own 55+ family members well, I would say that age group is willing to spend money on services without hesitation!

Facebook may need to amend the site with new ways for people to purchase products based upon their status updates, notes, videos, etc and integrate more with online shopping retailers such as Amazon, Ebay, etc to help tap into that 55+ market if they want to make money down the line. But I certainly think Facebook should take a hard look at serving that age segment as well. Give them a place to come to and they will. The 55+ also like to keep in touch with family, friends, etc more so than the 18 - 25 and probably much more engaged in keeping in touch rather than getting hundreds and hundreds of tweets each day. Ignorning that segment would be a bad thing for Facebook.

Comment from jason on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T13:45:51Z

I, as a recent graduate, do not use Facebook anymore because of e-mail. I would say that most of high school, and college, students have not discovered e-mail yet, as email is used a lot in corporate America. Ever since I started working, where I had to use e-mail all the time, I switched to e-mailing friends instead of going to Facebook. A few of my friends have done the same thing.

Comment from Sean on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T14:01:18Z

WOW - fascinating stuff, guys! Old people use Facebook OMG!!!!!!

Comment from Adam on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T14:04:10Z

I'd bet facebook is questioning its decision to depart from its strictly student requirements. When a college student's uncle, pastor, nephew, or grandmother are sending friend requests, it no longer functions in the same way. Facebook worked best for college students when everything said was between fellow students. It was its own secluded world which granted users more personal freedom. News feeds have only served to increase the publicity. They were bound to lose that demographic with how public the site has gotten.
Now that relatives, community leaders, and future employers are on facebook (some employers are known to check facebook before hiring), that intimate freedom is lost. The site is still being used as a networking tool, but college students don't want to have to watch what they say. For substantial social activity, they're going offline.
My question is: how long will facebook continue to be a powerhouse? Sure its membership is blossoming, but with an older demographic who is certain to first, spend less personal time on the site than students and second, lose interest in the sight within a few years or months.

Comment from Yasser on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T14:16:22Z

Talking from my surrounding... a lot of young kids have left Facebook because they don't want their parents using it and having all their relatives checking up on them and their friends. Facebook might had "boomed" when ti opened up to everyone but at the same time it slowly started killing its true original users which were college students.

Where are they going? Twitter, Blogging, SMS mostly. No true place to go right now but I'm sure something will pop up sooner or better. It was the same for MySpace as soon as "old" people started joining it stopped being a cool place to be.

Comment from Kevin Burrell on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T14:17:54Z

You may want to check out what Danah Boyd has said about facebook as of late. She seems to be tracking the online youth trends and has this to add to your conversation.

http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2009/06/30/pdf_talk_the_no.html

Big fan of you guys

Kevin Burrell

Comment from Brent on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T14:32:49Z

Facebook has been stagnant in feature set for awhile. I have always been struck by the general crappiness of Facebook compared to other social networking sites. Facebook is a prime example of the network effect. However, once other better services reach critical mass they will have their own network effect. Facebook's relentless copying of Twitter is an admission that this has already happened. But Facebook will find, as MySpace already has, that copying is not an acceptable substitute for innovation...

Comment from Bill Trippe on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T15:21:48Z

Many of the comments here address my reaction. Mr. Kirkpatrick is showing his bias when he claims there is something "not pretty" about this. As noted, smart business people can target whatever market they can accurately measure and respond to. Moreoever, older people have much more money and much more discretionary money.

A much better and far more thoughtful reaction would be to simply consider what the changing demographics of Facebook means for the business. How can they respond most productively?

Comment from MOOBER on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T15:22:50Z

Bad analysis. The absolute growth in HS and college kids is represented in the age category, and it is growing.

The issue is self disclosure issue. The enrollment bucket is a self-select category. Further proven by the 291% growth in unknown gender.

The issue is people are sharing less with Facebook. Or, there are a lot of spammers setting up shop.

Comment from Bill Beattie on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T15:26:46Z

I'm not at all surprised about the above. I'm one of the old fogies who has gone to Facebook recently. I'm much bigger on LinkedIn, but I am finding Facebook has some good business uses.

With a little tweaking, I could picture Facebook becoming a tough competitor for LinkedIn. Most of the social sites are falling over themselves for the young crowd. But for both of my bisinesses, ECI Biotech Recruiters and www.PharmaceuticalJobSite.com I actually pay LinkedIn a montly fee for expanded priviliges on their site. How many kids are sending Facebook money for the same?

It may be that Facebook realizes a business model that includes user fees as well as advertising is better than one based on advertising alone. And the only people willing to pay user fees are business users, not kids.

Comment from Linn on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T15:33:09Z

The death of Facebook? Probably at some point...
As much as the death of e-mail have been predicted for a couple of years..
And the death of blogs...

Of course Facebook is UN-cool! People who hardly know how to use a computer, know how to use FB =D

Young kids haven't gone anywhere (yet), but the late adapters are here to stay I guess...

Now, I'm just wondering - any numbers on the rest of the world? Or Europe at least? Pretty big market as well ;-)

Comment from alltoute on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T15:59:03Z

Numbers and statistics, we can make them say almost anything we want... Here is my view: We can't really say that users in the 18-24 age range are going somewhere else by looking at these numbers alone. There are more users in each age range. We can say for sure that the progression is less aggressive in some age range, but is it that problematic? One thing we have to consider here is that there is a limit to the progression: the total number of people "playing" on the web!!! Now let's look at the percentage of users per range and let's compare them with the percentage for the entire web ecosystem.
(I'm using these numbers for the complete web users: [0-17]:10%, [18-24]:27%, [25-34]:27%, [35-54]: 25%, [55+]:11%)
It really looks like the Facebook numbers are converging to the general web numbers and the only range still "far" from the global numbers is the 55+ range. You can say what you want , but Facebook total global numbers of users are still in fast progression and they will soon hit the limit if they continue at this rate. Young people where early adopters, now 55+ are jumping in the wagon. Google has reached that limit years ago and they are now progressing slowly. Is this just a mainstream universal web application? Going to stay cool enough to retain younger users in the future is certainly something to watch closely. Is it going to generate enough money? Is it less attractive to advertisers? Facebook high valuation is based on the assumption that it is a very good platform to reach the right people at the right place at the right time. So the percentage of users in each age range doesn’t matter that much if the total number of users in each age range is high enough.
P.S. The educational level numbers are too weird to be commented at all.

Comment from gregory on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T16:18:57Z

Isn't this what happened to AOL? All the kids were using it (via the free floppy disks and CDs) and then parents and grandparents started using it and the rest is history..

It's interesting how facebook wants to be more open, but personally, it's only appeal is that it's closed. As facebook becomes more open and becomes more like the internet at large why do we need facebook at all? Is it the 2009 internet on training wheels (aka AOL)?

Comment from Matthew Chamberlin on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T16:28:31Z

Isn't it possible that we are seeing a summer time drop off? School is out, kids might me transitioning from one school to another, and perhaps we are just seeing a slowdown that will reverse itself come September.

Another positive trend might be that parents are getting involved with facebook to better understand what it's all about and see what their kids are up to, not in the sense of spying on them but, rather, seeing what all the fuss is about.

Just two possible theories. I have seen no evidence of any competing service talking away the mojo of facebook. Not saying it WON'T happen, but I would need to see some evidence that it's imminent. People LOVE to proclaim the death of everything online. Here's a news flash: people still use e-mail and they probably always will.

I suspect there are other factors at play here, but it's just my feeling.

Comment from kmoiser42 on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T17:04:10Z

The strangest thing about the numbers is not that facebook is losing high school aged users, its that there are fewer people identifying themselves as being in high school. That may be a fine point, but it is a significant one. It is also not surprising that the rate of growth among 0-17 year-old users is far slower than the 55+ age range. As facebook becomes more mainstream more people will use it and the largest growth sector will be were there were no active users to begin with.

Comment from Jordan on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T17:22:14Z

My 2 cents:

http://jordanwillms.posterous.com/facebooks-own-estimates-show-declining-studen-0

Comment from Bill on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T17:22:43Z

Looks like the numbers are up for High School and College age individuals is up but current enrollment are down.
Economy? Privacy settings? People not listing their schools anymore? Combination of the three I'd imagine...

Comment from Steffan on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T17:24:51Z

I think one of @MOOBER 's points above is insightful. The data seems to show a clear story about the student demographic - The age demographic 18-24 shows absolute growth. However, his point about the "unknown gender" growth of 291% doesn't show WHO isn't sharing that data. I would think it more likely that the 55+ growth (generally less tech savvy - no offense) would account for the bulk of the "lack of disclosure" issue. I know many 55+ers from my family that joined Facebook recently and never uploaded profile pic or filled out their profiles. it's just a foreign concept to them. Also...why is no one here raving about the 10915% growth in "unknown age" growth in this discussion - that highlights the lack of disclosure problem. Are people just freaked out about privacy?

Comment from Laurie Pringle on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T17:58:19Z

Why only gather US info?

There's a great big world out there and most marketers, charities and other orgs want to sell to them to.

This US centric data isn't all that helpful to a good many of us. The USA youth market was not the fastest to embrace FB, Canada was. So what are Canadian youth doing? How are Canadian boomers and GenX'ers responding?

Comment from Oliver Young on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T18:03:44Z

Marshall, are these logins or registered users? It seems to me that Matthew has hit the nail on the head: summer vacation. I'm sure if its logins they will jump way back up again at the end of august.

Comment from Rob S. on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T18:23:41Z

"As you can see in the chart above, young people by age are up a small amount, but young people by school level are down. Users with undeclared education levels are way up, implying that many high school and college students may simply no longer be listing their schools at all on the site."

This is the detail the Twittersphere is omitting when tweeting this story.

Then again, this posts own headline "Facebook's Own Estimates Show Declining Student Numbers; Now More Grandparents Than High School Users" is itself misleading ;)

Comment from kenny on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T18:51:21Z

Reminds me of what the city did at the beach. They wanted more older people to go to the beach, wanted to make it family friendly, so they played Lawrence Welk on the loud speakers after the bars closed to disperse the crowds. Also passed other laws targeting the young. So what happened the youngsters left. now the once great beach is nothing more than a tourist destinations, and locals refuse to go to it. The youngsters now drive 2 hrs to another beach who welcomes them. I refuse to go. They took the fun out of it.
Facebook should not cater to either demographic. Many of the users like having grandparents along with friends on facebook.
Also kids today know that businesses are looking at these social sites in determining hiring. That may be a reason for a drop in the number of young people. Older adults 55+ mostly don't have to worry about being turned down for a job because of something on their profile.....

Just my 2 cents.

Comment from Krishna Santani on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T19:43:55Z

Its Shocker for me.. Facebook is always changing itself constantly by taking out different applications and its going to show you how volatile are the these emerging generation. You never know what they want?? I am worried about the kind of advertisments we are going to see in facebook after these revelation....!!

Comment from Britt on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T20:21:23Z

In June, 33% of high schooler are suddenly proud to tell everyone they're not in high school. Ditto for 25% of college students.

This is obvious.

Comment from John C Abell on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T20:30:55Z

Wouldn't you say it is plausible that college kids are using their college e-mail addresses in lesser numbers to register for FB rather than fewer college kids are using FB? The 18-24 group (which is college age and then some) has grown, and I bet these stats are based on domain names. If it were me I'd use my gmail account I intend to use for the rest of my life to register, not my transient college account.

Also, to be really meaningful the apples-to-apples comparison is the number of kids in college to the number of that age group on FB. If these don't track -- if the former trends up and the latter down -- then you have something.

The number of college kids is fairly static -- there is finite space in all of the colleges combined -- and this group was its core base. The influx (new students) should be as steady as the outflow (graduates). So it's also hardly surprising that, as FB becomes more ingrained, there will be growth in other areas, either much older or much younger.

Aside from the natural aging trend (today's 18-24-year-old will be tomorrow's 25-34) the most natural hot demographic would be 55+: the parents and grandparents of kids they can newly friend and keep up with.

Comment from Christian on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T21:46:16Z

If the data is in fact correct, then where are the high school students and college students hanging out now? Probably not Myspace and not Twitter either.
Any thoughts on that?

Comment from Nat Torkington on 2009-07-07

2009-07-08T02:01:54Z

Couldn't this be a side-effect of summer break? Kids are out of school in July. Everyone who graduated highschool or college is now proudly marking themselves as no longer in highschool or college. The new entrants in high school and college aren't there yet, so haven't updated their Facebook status.

The test of this theory will be to look at numbers after the new school year starts and see whether they jag back up.

Comment from Michael on 2009-07-07

2009-07-08T04:41:47Z

Facebook usage always drops during summer, and then spikes in the fall when kids come back to school and meet a ton of new people.

Comment from Kristine on 2009-07-08

2009-07-08T13:43:55Z

There's always a mass exodus to whatever the newest social networking site was. In 2003, it was Friendster. By 2005, everyone had migrated to MySpace, in spite of the fact that it was a pretty horrible site but Friendster couldn't handle the bandwidth. Then by 2007, everyone was migrating to Facebook and by mid-2008, nobody I knew was still using MySpace.

I think it's just the nature of how these things are. Something better will pop up, and everyone will move. It probably will start with the younger people, then we'll all end up following.

I don't see Twitter as a viable option for the next migration. Not too many high schoolers are Twittering as is and it serves a totally different purpose than a site like Facebook. It's less universal and more of an acquired taste.

Comment from Michele on 2009-07-08

2009-07-08T17:01:54Z

1,145,080 users are missing from the current enrollment numbers for July.

Adding up high school, college, alumni, unknown =
42,089,200 January
70,756,320 July

Compare to total given under gender =
42,089,200 January
71,901,400 July

That's too significant to overlook.

Looking at the raw data (iStrategy Labs has the link) it is far more interesting to look at the "interests" category which was not included in this graphic. Note an increase interest in sex and drugs, but a drop in so-called "rock and rock (music)"

For the January data set:
72,100 sex
25,440 drugs
3,901,600 rock and rock (music)

For the July data set:
905,800 sex
124,600 drugs
208,880 rock and rock (music)

Comment from Jin on 2009-07-08

2009-07-08T17:17:47Z

These numbers make no sense.

In Jan, high school students were 99% of users aged 0-17.

Similary, college students were 46% of users aged 18-24.

Now in July, the numbers say that high school students are only 67% of users aged 0-17. This would imply that a lof children/Tweens have gotten on FB and a lot of high school students have left. It possible, but I really doubt that much has shifted in six months.

College students have now dropped to just 34% of the users aged 18-24. Again possible, but highly unlikely in such a short period of time. This would imply that non-college students and users generally 23 and 24 are joining in droves while college students are leaving to get to that 4.8% growth. Again - does not even remotely gut check.

Comment from wolfithius on 2009-07-08

2009-07-08T17:32:21Z

This is just following a pattern that my father observed when I was in high school. When adults adopt the culture of youth, youth moves on to find the "next big thing" that they can call "theirs," even if it was invented by an adult.

Comment from Julie on 2009-07-09

2009-07-09T14:47:30Z

The decline in college students on facebook may be more deceiving than it is truthful. As a recent college graduate, I changed my primary email address on facebook to my new work email and as a result was kicked out of my college's network without the ability to get back in because my student email account was no longer active. I was unaware that this would occur (and was given no warning notice) because after all, I was listed as an alumni so obviously I would not have an active student email address with my former college. I did not chooose this, and was actually quite upset by it. Therefore, I could now be considered one of those facebook users with an "undeclared education level" not by my own choice, but by facebook.

Comment from LQuinn on 2009-07-09

2009-07-09T15:22:09Z

The evolution of social networking is still a relatively new trend (considering it has only been five-six years since the emergence of MySpace and Facebook). It will be difficult to predict where user retention is going to stay due to MySpace declining in popularity, Facebook shifting its demographic audience, and Twitter's user retention rate dropping. Where does this leave member loyalty?

Social networkers are looking for something different, more unique to the already popular hobby. I suggest checking out a new social network called, www.HopOnThis.com. HopOnThis rewards their members with cash and prizes just for staying active on the site.

Comment from Kevin on 2009-07-09

2009-07-10T02:51:18Z

Is the high school and college listing reduction related to the fact that school administrators are now ACTIVELY persecuting kids for what they say and do online?

Comment from Doc on 2009-07-10

2009-07-10T23:40:27Z

Bummer. All those old 35 year olds with their disposable income are showing up and using the software.

Do advertisers hate it because they have to work harder to convince 25 year-olds to buy their crap?

The fact is that even 20 and 25 year olds are getting harder to sell to. They want authenticity and quality and sustainability and if you don't have that, they don't want your product.

I think advertisers are looking for someone to blame for their falling sales. Methinks they should look in a mirror.

p.s. The kids are off being with each other in the real world. There social lives are already busy enough without Facebook. They won't need Facebook till they're older. Get it???

Comment from Donal McRae on 2009-07-12

2009-07-12T18:00:56Z

"How fickle are kids these days?" It may not have occurred to you, but the general consencus of school aged children is that adults and those above 55 years of age, aren't exactly the most "hip and with it" people around. When a flood of older and less tech-savvy individuals crowd on board a website like Facebook, it's inevitable that the kids will scatter to the wind.

Comment from Marshall Kirkpatrick on 2009-07-16

2009-07-16T17:05:26Z

[Holy Cow!] Facebook's Own Estimates Show Youth Flight From Site; Now More Grandparents Than High School Users http://bit.ly/9VOSA [from http://twitter.com/marshallk/statuses/2506728522]

Comment from thecomedychick on 2009-07-20

2009-07-20T20:05:38Z

I'm an "older" person and therefore did not have the time/nor energy to read all the posts...could it be that the US population is just getting "older". 15 to 39 year olds only make up 34% of US population, while 40 to 79 year olds make up 42%... regardless...age is a state of mind! Source: Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau
Release Date: May 14, 2009

Comment from Margaret on 2009-07-22

2009-07-22T13:35:45Z

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Comment from ugg on 2009-09-10

2009-09-10T08:59:38Z