By Vicky Florian ‘14

Not long ago, a teenage girl would log onto her Facebook account to catch up with her friends. As she scrolled down her news feed, she was intrigued by the embarrassing pictures from the party the other night, entertained by a witty status of a boy she liked and amazed at her friend’s new relationship status. She would write on her friends’ walls and they would return the favor. For teens of both genders, and of all social cliques, Facebook was exciting and well worth the often outrageous amount of time teenagers spent on it.

But much like MySpace and other once-popular sites, Facebook’s teen popularity is experiencing a significant decline. It is being increasingly taken over by middle-aged relatives, invitations to play online games and an excessive amount of posts from pages ‘liked’ back in middle school.

It is not that teens have stopped using Facebook altogether, but rather they have introduced new, more widely used sites to their repertoire. Twitter has become progressively more popular, with an increase in teen users from 16 percent in 2011 up to 24 percent in 2013, according to a survey by Pew Research Center. Applications on smart phones have diversified as well, pulling teens away from the traditional Facebook.

“I have been wanting to deactivate my Facebook for awhile because I don’t even use it anymore, like I used to,” said senior Stephanie Cuzmar. “Instagram and Twitter are just more entertaining in today’s time.”

Unlike in the past, teens today have access to a multitude of different social networking sites and applications. While Facebook has videos, statuses, photos and messaging all rolled into one convenient site, the increasingly popular applications like Twitter, Instagram and Vine have become more specialized. The rising popularity of these sites suggests that teens prefer social networks that focus on simply one type of content.

Though many teens choose to express themselves on other platforms, a large amount of social networking still takes place on Facebook. “Instead of Facebook being the Walmart of social media, it will become just one platform in a big ecology, including photo sharing with Instagram, broadcasting with Twitter, etc,” the Pew survey concluded.

“Facebook will continue to be used to some degree, but other apps will begin to dominate the time teens spend on social networks,” predicted senior Ashley Ventura.

A poll conducted by Piper Jaffray asked teens for their most important social media network, first in the fall of 2012 and then a follow-up in the spring of 2013. Over this period, the percent of teens that prefer Facebook decreased by nine percent, while the popularity of both Instagram and Twitter increased.

When 107 Sherwood students were polled, 35 percent claimed to use Instagram most frequently, 34 percent used Twitter, 18 percent used Facebook and 10 percent used some other site. Students themselves have noticed the decline of Facebook. In the survey, 87 percent of the students believe Facebook is used less often now by teenagers than it was just two years ago.

While Facebook ranked third most popular social network among Sherwood students, 94 percent still claim to have an account. Facebook may not be the most hip site for teens, but it is still prominent in teen social media today.