Sure, Facebook’s future looked quite nice on Thursday after its second quarter earnings report exceeded Wall Street’s expectations with a revenue of $1.8 billion and profit of $488 million. And yes, the company reported an average of 699 million daily active users, an increase of 27 percent over the second quarter of 2012.
But even as its stock price went through the roof Thursday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg knows that there are teens out there losing interest in his social network. In fact, a recent Pew study found that kids are leaving Facebook because they don’t like all the drama.
So we thought it was the perfect time to visit the University of Washington campus and really find out what the younger folk think of Facebook. The answers were mixed — some students use the network far less than before, while others said they log-in to Facebook much more often than they did when creating an account years ago.
And while many were annoyed with how much meaningless content surfaces in their feed nowadays, some added that they rely on Facebook to stay in touch with friends more than ever.
Listen to what the students had to say with the video above, or read their answers below.
Matt Kahavka, 20 years old. Facebook user since 2007
“No, I don’t use it as much. I get tired of what’s on it. I use LinkedIn more, but that’s a different ballgame I guess, not quite social media.
Facebook has been over-saturated with things that I don’t really care about so much. The more friends I have, the more things pop up in my news feed and the less interested I am in the majority of them. It’s just a lack of interest.”
Katelyn Petrin, 19 years old, Facebook user since 2008
“I do not use it as much. There’s a lot less actually happening on it than there used to be, so there’s less reason to be on it. People uploaded photos a lot more often and just updated things more often. I have no idea where it’s gone to, but it’s just not happening on Facebook anymore.
I think with a lot of the updates, people found them to be very inconvenient, especially with the Timeline’s ability to actively go through stuff, a lot of people didn’t seem to like that. Beyond that, I think the activity has been spreading to multiple platforms that are more specialized to the things people liked about Facebook.”
Le Truong, 22 years old. Facebook user since 2007
“I think I use it more often as I get older because I can’t keep up with all my friends. I text sometimes, but sometimes when I’m in bed I’m pretty lazy, so typing is easier than text messaging.”
Lindsay Sauerlender, 21 years old. Facebook user since 2006
“I use Facebook way more. I didn’t use it when I first got it. For like three years it just sat there doing nothing because MySpace was still popular.
I’ve thought about Google+ trying to take over Facebook. I think it could happen eventually, but I think it’ll take a long time, if it does happen.
If I’m in class and it’s a class that I have to listen and pay attention but not all the way, I’ll pull out Instagram because there’s no text so you don’t have to process words. But if it’s something where I’m just kind of entertaining myself I’ll probably pull out Facebook first.”
Alex Hutko, 35 years old. Facebook user since 2007
“I use it, of course, and I probably use it more now than ever. Maybe I’ve just got in the habit of using it more. It’s probably my primary way to keep up with all my friends. All my good friends are on Facebook. It’s sort of a way to stalk all of your friends.”
Jazae Akhtarkhavari and Derrick Brown, 20 years old. Facebook users since 2008
“I don’t use Facebook as much. Instagram, Twitter I use more — Facebook is fading away. And I think other social media sites are going to come out.” — Derrick
“I think old people will stay with Facebook.” — Jazae
Dustin Chan, 22. years old Facebook users since 2008
“I don’t use it as much anymore. Why? Because makes me sad — I’m joking. People just post the same shit over and over again and it’s just repetitive. I just use the chat when I’m at work to communicate with my co-workers that are in another room.
Is your phone considered social media, or does that not count? I text people mostly and call.
Facebook is declining. People have been doing the same thing and there’s not much real change, so if there was perhaps a larger change then people would use it more, or maybe a better interface. Maybe they should make it a search engine.”
Andrew Clark, 27 years old. Facebook user since 2007
“I use Facebook just to see the feed and what people are up to. By and large it’s not very interesting but you kind of do it anyway. People post random stuff that they find on Internet, nothing terribly exciting. It’s just not particularly useful information.
People post like “I heart rednecks” photos of their trucks with confederate flags and the decals, and I don’t know, I’m just not interested in that.
I think Twitter is better. It’s a nice way to follow what’s going on in the news. I have family that use it also. It seems like a better service to me.”
Angela Fritz, 24 years old, and Lauron P., 26 years old. Facebook users since 2006
“I’m 26 now in grad school and it’s just not as much of a social connection as it used to be. It’s mostly full of people either who are getting married or are having babies now. I don’t really care too much about that stuff right now.
I use Instagram purely for filters, not so much the social aspect. The only time I use Facebook is when I’m really bored in class or if we have an assignment to do and have group chats — I can keep up with assignments that way.” — Lauron
“I use Facebook less than I used to. But I have family abroad and a lot of friends abroad that are far way, so I use Facebook Chat because it’s expensive to text and call.” — Angela
Shanece Washington, 23 years old. Facebook user since 2007
“I definitely don’t use it as much. I’m in grad school pretty so I’m busy. It’s just kind of like a check it and get off. It’s just kind of habit to check it throughout the day.
Instagram is kind of a big deal now so I think there’s less focus on Facebook now. But also there’s a lot of negative press that’s been going on with Facebook and how they sell your information and you have to make certain things private or you have no control and you property isn’t yours anymore. All of those things kind of contribute, I think, but I don’t necessarily think of that as soon as I log into Facebook.”
Alain Orbino, 19 years old. Facebook user since 2008
“Last time I logged in was an hour ago and that was the first time in two weeks. I’m just not interested in it anymore. I really don’t see the people a lot anymore on Facebook. A lot of my friends on Facebook were from high school, that type of thing. I’d rather see them in person than just keep up with them online.
Facebook isn’t as popular as it was. Well, I don’t think so because I don’t use it as often — maybe other people do. What I’ve heard from other people is that they don’t use it as often, too. I’ve heard of people trying to get rid of it but it’s harder than they think.”
Previously on GeekWire: No kidding: New study says most Facebook users have taken multi-week breaks … How much would you pay for an ad-free Facebook?
