Facing up to troubles.

Certain things are ingrained into the public consciousness to such an extent it is hard to imagine life without them. Tea, football, roast dinners, Google have all had significant influence on British culture. So has Facebook, emerging from being a small private network created in a Harvard dorm it has become a bastion of the digital world. With over one billion members Facebook has become the most popular social network in a number of countries. However, like Myspace and Bebo before it cracks are starting to appear in what was the seemingly impenetrable userbase.

A comprehensive survey released this week analysing Facebook has found that teenagers are deserting the site at an alarming rate. Teenagers were largely responsible for the initial growth of Facebook and as such the effects of this demographic leaving could have a significant impact on the long term viability of the site. The increasing use of Facebook amongst adults and the inevitable friend requests to their children has been a hammer blow. Social networks have served as a private utopia for teenagers, free from the prying eyes of parents but this has been severely threatened. High profile cases of drunken antics posted being used against people by police and employers. Coupled with evidence of mass public spying from the NSA and GCHQ there is definite evidence that individuals are being more careful about what they post. Facebook looks to be moving towards a so called 'contacts book' a place to keep in touch with people but the free expression of posting and sharing faces an inevitable decline.

The implications of the fleeing of the masses from Facebook could be enormous. Obviously less people using it would have a negative impact on companies ability to reach consumers, but many Facebook pages serve as so called proxy websites that one can visit without an account. The real damage will be decline in exposure for a post to be shared and liked. People spending less time on the site means less exposure, period - as the Americans would say. The trouble is that the research shows people are not moving to alternative, but instead more private networks such as whatsapp and snapchat. The potential for integrated advertising into these networks is extremely limited compared to Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook itself may be forced to further integrate advertising to counter a falling userbase. Upon being floated in the stock market the share price dropped significantly after studies showed very few members clicked through adverts. Whether this leads to sponsored photos showing up, more prominent adverts or something else is not yet apparent. What is sure is that with such a huge base and unprecedented data on those users lives and online habits it will not be going anywhere just yet.