Facebook to Refocus Company on ‘Serving Young Adults’

Following recent reports that Facebook has been failing to attract younger users, Mark Zuckerberg has announced that the company will be refocusing on “serving young adults.”

Breitbart News recently reported that tech giant Facebook has been failing to attract younger users to the platform in recent years. Facebook found that teenage users on the Facebook app in the U.S. declined by 13 percent since 2019 and the company expected that figure to drop 45 percent over the next two years. Facebook expected adults between the ages of 20 and 30 to decline by 4 percent during that same timeframe.

Facebook’s research appeared to show that the younger a user is, the less time they spent on the Facebook app on average. Researchers wrote in an integral memo that the “aging up issue is real” and predicted that “increasingly fewer teens are choosing Facebook as they grow older,” and that Facebook could face an even more “severe” decline in younger users than previously predicted.

Now, the Verge reports that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has redirected teams within the company to “make serving young adults their north star.” The comment was made on a call with investors this week and shows how much of a priority attracting younger users is to Facebook.

“So much of our services have gotten dialed to be the best for the most people who use them, rather than specifically for young adults,” Zuckerberg said. Zuckerberg further suggested that major changes may take place due to this plan that could result in a decline of usage among older uses but that this was a tradeoff Facebook was willing to handle. “I think it’s the right approach,” Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg plans for the changes to be gradual over the next few years. One example of a major change would be shifting Instagram’s focus further into video and making the platform’s Reels feature “a more central part of the experience.”

Read more at the Verge here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com