News

Young people 'moving away from Facebook in their droves', expert says

Young people 'moving away from Facebook in their droves', expert says

Facebook has 300,000 fewer users in Ireland this year compared to last year.

2.6 million Irish people now use the social media site.

Analysis from Mulley Communications shows that represents a drop of 10%.

Only 200,000 people use the Facebook stories feature, compared to the 1.5 million who use Instagram stories.

Advertisement

"It's all younger users (leaving Facebook)," explained Newstalk Tech correspondent Jess Kelly.

"(Facebook) have twice as many over 50s than they do people under 18. A lot of younger people are using the likes of Snapchat (and) new messaging applications to communicate and they are moving away from Facebook in their droves," she added.

Meanwhile, Facebook is reportedly considering a trial that would hide the number of likes posts receive, following a similar test already being carried out on Instagram.

The Instagram experiment is currently only visible to some accounts in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan and New Zealand.

Advertisement