The latest trends of Facebook users show why it was necessary to make big changes in the news

The use of Facebook in the US UU It seems to have been under pressure for much of 2017. The company's latest measures are aimed at preventing the problem from becoming a serious long-term problem.


With each passing week, more evidence accumulates that Facebook's decision to prioritize social interactions on its core platform is not just a public relations tactic aimed at deflecting recent criticism, but a necessary business movement in light of the recent commitment of the company. user trends


Instagram figures are better: 35% of respondents reported using Facebook's photo / video sharing platform, a 28% increase in April 2016. The percentage that says they use the platform several times a day increased two points at 38%. In September, Instagram revealed that it had exceeded 800 million monthly global active users (MAU), twice as many as two years before.

There are also signs that, regardless of whether or not it is one of the company's goals, Facebook's actions will provide a new boost to the prices of ads that have already grown rapidly.


Pew Research's latest annual survey on the use of social media in the US UU - It took place in early January and involved some 2,000 people - suggests that the percentage of American adults who use Facebook itself remained stable compared to 68% in April 2016. In addition, the percentage of Facebook users who They say they use their site or application "several times a day" fell from 55% to 51%.

Pew's figures are supported by data from Nielsen that indicate that Facebook's share of online time among American adults decreased gradually in 2017. By November, Nielsen believes that Facebook platforms saw an annual decline of 4% in " aggregate aggregate time "of EE. UU., Despite the 6% growth of the user, with decreases in the use of Facebook to compensate the healthy growth of Instagram.

The arrival of the data comes after Facebook revealed (in conjunction with its Q4 report) that the daily active users (DAU) of North America for its central platform and Messenger fell by 700,000 to approximately 184 million, the first sequential decline since Facebook was made public in 2012. Worldwide, the DAU still increased by 33 million to 1,401 million, but with almost half of the company's revenues still coming from the US. UU And Canada, the American decline naturally made some investors nervous.

Mark Zuckerberg has not refused to warn that this effort will lead to short-term falls in time spent and "some other compromise measures". At the same time, citing internal research that suggests passive consumption of social networks is harmful to mental health and that interactions with family and friends are beneficial, he insists that Facebook's actions will guarantee that "time spent is good time." employee".

It was also reported at that time: changes in the news feed algorithm that reduced the amount of viral videos that users saw reduced the overall time spent on Facebook in the last quarter by approximately 50 million hours per day, or 5%. Those changes, along with the moves launched in 2018 to reduce the amount of brand and editorial content that appears, are part of Facebook's broader effort to increase the percentage of use that involves social interactions rather than passive content consumption.