Facebook is has just realised something that could shake the company’s foundations to the ground. Their chief financial officer, David Ebersman, confirmed that teenagers (the most important demographic for a social media site) were becoming less active on Facebook.

Researchers at GlobalWebIndex, an online study on digital consumers in 32 markets, recently released stats that show just how many teens are shying away from Facebook.

They surveyed teens in 30 countries. After extensive research, they were able to show that the number of teenagers claiming to be active on Facebook had dropped to 56% in the third quarter of 2013, from 76% in the first. And for sites like Facebook, a drop of 20% means millions, billions even.

The biggest decline in active usage (by 52%) was in the Netherlands; while there was only a 16% fall for American teens.

So, where are they going instead? Unsurprisingly, it’s private one-to-one chat services like WeChat and Whatsapp, and photo sharing sites like Snapchat and Instagram that are claiming the lion’s share. What’s startling is the sheer speed at which these teens are switching services, as the graph below illustrates.

CEO of GlobalWebIndex, Tom Smith (real name?), said:

There is a very clear story with the big winners being closed messaging and video-and-photo sharing apps. This is something that could be particularly harmful to Facebook because its core value lies in peer-to-peer community, messaging and photo sharing.

Or is this all really as simple as teens getting bored really quickly?

[Source : Forbes]