There has been plenty of back and forth over the past year or so regarding whether or not teens and other young users are abandoning Facebook in favor of rival services. The theory is that parents and other family members use Facebook too often to keep tabs on their children, so children are moving away from Facebook to services like Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, and other social networks that offer more privacy.
Skeptics of Facebook’s business model have long pointed to anecdotal evidence that the social network is losing its luster with teens as evidence that the firm will ultimately be unable to justify its $140 billion valuation. Indeed, even Facebook itself admitted last fall that it had lost younger users. “We did see a decrease in [teenage] daily users [during the quarter], especially younger teens,” Facebook chief financial officer David Ebersman said during a call with analysts.
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