‘I might delete Facebook' The platform's growing problem with young users

Oliver Coughlan embodies Facebook’s problems with teenage and young adult audiences – a growing number of them don’t like it. The 23-year-old says he stopped using Facebook regularly three years ago and he is considering deleting the app. His sole use for it now is to check people’s birthdays.

- Dan Milmo Clea Skopeliti

“I haven’t deleted it yet, but I might do soon – I really don’t like the company’s monopolistic behaviour,” said the British student based in the Netherlands. He added that the Brexit referendum and the 2016 US presidential election, and the online anger that accompanied those polls, convinced him that he wanted to spend less time on Facebook’s main platform. “There were comments that would come up from people arguing about stuff they don’t know about.”

Facebook’s problem is that Coughlan, who says he would also leave its Instagram app if he could find an alternative, is not the only one. According to internal documents leaked by the whistleblower Frances Haugen, who gave hard-hitting testimony to US senators on Tuesday, Facebook is struggling to recruit and retain a young audience. “Facebook understands that if they want the company to grow they have to find new users,” she told senators.