Survey Finds More People Are Taking Breaks From Facebook

Following the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, a movement was launched to #DeleteFacebook. However despite the damning implications of the privacy scandal, data seemed to show that it did not exactly impact Facebook’s usage stats that much. This does not mean that users think what happened in okay, but it simply could be how much Facebook is ingrained in our lives today that we have no choice but to keep using its services.

However fast forward a few months later, that doesn’t appear to be true anymore. In a recent survey published by Pew Research Center (via The Verge), it seems that more people are taking breaks from Facebook and are also deleting the app from their smartphones (although this doesn’t mean that they don’t use the web version of Facebook).

The survey sampled Facebook users from the US aged 18 and above, where it was discovered that about 42% of those surveyed stated that they have taken a break from Facebook for “several weeks or more”, and a quarter of respondents also stated that they deleted the app. Interestingly enough it seems that the younger generation are the ones who are deleting the app, versus the older generation.

44% of those who deleted the app were aged 18-29, while those aged 50-64 accounted for 20%, and those aged 65 and over accounted for 12%. However like we said, we use Facebook for a lot of things, shopping, keeping in contact with friends, loved ones, colleagues, logging into services, and more, so as much as many would probably love to cut out Facebook completely, it might be harder to do so than we thought.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: Facebook, Privacy, survey