Study Finds Young People No Longer Like Getting News From Facebook

Once again, a research study has found that young people are disillusioned with Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg’s social network is massive and ubiquitous, but for the second time in 2018, data suggests younger audiences prefer other websites and apps, specifically for following the daily news cycle.

The newest numbers come from a study by the Reuters Institute. The organization’s latest Digital News Report found that younger audiences like getting their news from Facebook significantly less than they did just a couple of years ago. Instead, they prefer instant messaging services like WhatsApp.

The institute surveyed around 74,000 people in 37 different media markets, according to Reuters. It was discovered that in the U.S., there is a decrease in young users using Facebook for news with a 14 percentage point difference from 2016.

The full report can be found here.

Instead, those same users preferred WhatsApp, a separate messaging service Facebook owns. Rather than sharing and discussing news items on Facebook, users are talking to their friends about it privately. That approach lessens the possibility of having hostile interactions with people in the comments section underneath a controversial news story.

Facebook has also garnered a reputation as a repository for fake or misleading news in the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The site has taken some measures to curb the spread of fake news, but users are abandoning it anyway. Facebook also announced exclusive, funded news shows from the likes of ABC and CNN earlier this year.

The findings fit into other recent studies about Facebook. The Pew Research Center announced last month that American teenagers prefer apps like Instagram and Snapchat over Facebook for their general social media needs.