Youngsters leaving Facebook, but tech and social stays up

Mon 10 August 2009 15:44, Bas van den Beld

There are a couple of interesting trends to be noticed in the UK. Though the economic crisis
is still hitting industries hard, research by UK communications watchdog Ofcom shows UK residents don't want to cut back on tech.

This means that they will not want to lose their TV nor their broadband subscriptions. "UK consumers would rather go without meals out or holidays than reign back on their mobile phone, broadband or TV subscriptions" says Techradar.

This trend is in line with what has been said over the last couple of years, namely that UK residents are very much online minded. And when online they are trying to be social. There is however a change we can see when it comes to age: young Brits are leaving Facebook.

The research says 47 per cent of people would cut back on meals out, 41 per cent on home improvements and holidays and just 19 per cent on their mobile phones.

Most of the time the British can be found on either Google or Facebook. But we can also see a shift there. Not in the highth of the numbers, but in the age of the users. Ofcom stats show that on Facebook the crowd is changing.

Where the 15- to 24-year-olds used to be the top users of the service it now seems that 25- to 34-year-olds are taking over the site. The percentage of 15- to 24-year-olds who have a profile on a social networking site has dropped from 55% at the beginning of 2008 to 50% this year.

It could just be that the users are getting older, but the difference is pretty big keeping in mind it is a change with happened over a period of a year.

Overall social media is still growing in the UK. 30% of British adults have a social networking profile, against 21% in 2007. 50% of the UK online population have a Facebook profile an spend about six hours a month on the social media websites.

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