Younger Generation is Falling Out from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Older Generation Social Media

The Gen-Z generation is abandoning “traditional” social media sites that were of interest to previous generations. The only common platforms that cross generational lines are visually-oriented ones like TikTok and YouTube. And Tik Tok seems to be the more exciting of the two as a short video streaming platform with an abundance of people dancing, people doing tricks, dogs and cats doing tricks, birds and wild animals doing tricks, and so on.

The Great Gen-Z Migration

The Z-generation born between 1997 and 2012 is choosing sites like Twitch.TV for live-streaming and gaming, Discord for hanging out with friends, BeReal to create, store and share memories, and Poparazzi to share candid pictures with friends.

How Gen-Z-focused are these new platforms?

Twitch.TV demographics show close to 75% of viewers are between the ages of 16 and 34.

Discord’s demographic is between the ages of 13 and 25.

BeReal demographics show that 80% of users are between the ages of 16 and 24.

Poparazzi notes that 95% of its active users are under age 21 with over 75% between 14 and 18.

So what’s turning off Gen-Z about using “old” social media like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and others? Is this adolescent rebellion at work or does it represent different ways of thinking by a generation born after 1997?

Social media began as a young adult thing. Young adults were its creators and predominantly its users. They aged along with the apps created for them. To this day, Facebook and YouTube are the platforms of choice for this demographic. There is also substantial use of other platforms including Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest.

TikTok is more cross-generational. It holds an equal interest for Gen-Z and older social media users. The demographics show that 48% of TikTok users are between the ages of 18 and 29, 22% are between 30 and 49, and 14% are between 50 and 64.

The heavyweights of social media remain YouTube (81%) and Facebook (69%) with billions of users. Instagram is used by 40%. LinkedIn is used by 30%. Trailing are Twitter and WhatsApp at over 20%. The number for Twitter surprises me considering its visibility in the media as the platform for celebrities and politicians.

According to a recent Pew Research study looking at Americans’ social media use, there has been little variation in the numbers described above for several years despite the nature of information and disinformation appearing on social media sites, and the harnessing of these sites by interest groups and bots (software that emulates humans to disseminate or gather information).

What’s Motivating the Change

Why is Gen-Z moving to new social media platforms? The most significant difference between younger and older social media users, according to Target Internet, is how the former favour images over text. Gen-Zs would rather make video recordings or take pictures. Older social media users do both, and the oldest like me are more text-heavy.

The new apps described above are very much oriented to images as is TikTok. Of the old guard, only YouTube still connects to Gen-Zs with many young people using it for video promotions to support their latest gig economy business.

The 50-to-65-year-old crowd and people my age in their 70s gravitate to Facebook (less to Instagram, and even fewer to Twitter) where they connect to family and friends using both text and image. The 50 to 65 set consider a Facebook profile de rigueur. While LinkedIn remains a business and professional community, and a career and job hunting site. And Instagram appears to be where people in many age groups post pictures of food they get served at restaurants.

Note: I haven’t mentioned Reddit, Snapchat, Tumblr and other social media apps that remain in the mix. Of these three, Snapchat is the only one that appeals to Gen-Z but even then, the gravitational swing is to the newer apps.

Social Media’s Future

When Facebook changed its name to Meta it was pointing to social media embracing virtual and augmented reality.  But there is another trend at work more about communication and less about gaming, and shopping. This is social media’s dark side where the sharing aspects of social media and its ability to reach like-minded people anywhere are creating communities of like-minded people who find each other to share ideologies, conspiracy theories and organize. The January 6th, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol was facilitated by this trend within social media.

A different perspective on where social media is going is offered by Scroll Mantra, an India-based marketing communications firm. It sees several coming trends that include:

• Increasing vigilance around information posted with better policing by the owners of the apps.
• Reducing the amount of time content remains on sites to ensure relevance and minimize redundancy.
• Improving listening through dynamic interaction with users rather than creating apps that users consider of little value.
• Using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve interactions and understand audience trends and demographics.
• Creating paid-for social media sites tailored to specific audiences.

As I looked at these predictions I wondered if any took into consideration Gen-Z. Nothing referenced more visual content and less text, more social sharing and less selling (maybe the last point reflected the latter). So it will be interesting to revisit this topic five years from now to see the state of social media at that time. In the world of high technology, five years is a very long time.