Facebook, Alarmed by Teen Usage Drop, Left Investors in the Dark
Rising internal concerns about young users were largely invisible to outsiders, forming the basis of a whistle-blower’s SEC complaint
In March, a group of researchers inside Facebook Inc. compiled a report for one of the company’s most powerful executives, Chief Product Officer Chris Cox. The paper included a series of charts and data highlighting a troubling trend that seemed to be accelerating: Facebook was losing popularity with teens and young adults.
One colorful graphic showed that “time spent” for U.S. teenagers on Facebook was down 16% year-over-year, and that young adults in the U.S. were also spending 5% less time on the social network. The number of new teen signups was declining, and perhaps most concerning was a series of slides showing that young people were taking much longer to join Facebook than they had in the past. Most people born before 2000 had created a Facebook account by age 19 or 20, the research showed. Now Facebook wasn’t expecting people born later to join the social network until they were much older, perhaps 24 or 25, if ever.