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Teens Now Are Using Instagram More Than Facebook

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Move over Facebook. Where teens are concerned, Instagram reigns supreme, according to a recently published survey.

Piper Jaffray has been tracking how teenagers use the internet for nearly twenty years, and the second report of this year has some interesting findings indeed.

Here are the highlights:

85 percent of teens report using Instagram at least once a month, up from 79 percent in the fall of 2016.

84 percent of teens report using Snapchat at least once a month, up from 80 percent in the fall of 2016.

Just 36 percent of teens report using Facebook at least once a month, down from 52 percent in the fall of 2016.

In terms of their favorite social media platforms, here’s how things look as of this year:

Snapchat in first place with 46 percent

Instagram in second place with 32 percent

Twitter a distant third with six percent

Facebook fourth with just five percent

Interestingly, more teens still use Instagram, but the survey revealed that when the teens were asked which platform they prefer, Snapchat still wins the day.

The survey revealed the reason behind the seeming disconnect.  Instagram is the social media channel of choice when it comes to brand engagement of teens, with an overwhelming majority of teens preferring to be contacted by brands via Instagram.

It should be noted, however, that Snapchat is improving in this regard, but industry insiders are doubtful that Snapchat will be able to overcome Instagram’s dominance in brand engagement. This is because Instagram has been focusing heavily on improving engagement with the youngest cohort of the teen set.

Unless the company makes a major misstep in handling that segment of the demographic, they’re unlikely to lose them in the longer term.  Meanwhile, Facebook has become the bastion of older users.  Mom and dad check their Facebook accounts.  Teens check Instagram.

If your business markets products to teens, this is good information to know.  If you don’t have a robust presence on Instagram, then your social media isn’t doing as much for you as it could be.

Survey Shows Teens Are Concerned About Their Screen Time

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According to a recent survey conducted by Pew Research Center, 54 percent of teens say that they spend too much time on their cellphones.

Acknowledging you have a problem is the first, necessary step toward correcting it, and the survey reports that significant percentages of teens are taking steps to do just that.

The Survey Specifically States:

52 percent of teens report that they are actively trying to cut back on their mobile phone use

57 percent report that they’re taking steps to limit the amount of time they spend on social media

58 percent report that they’re cutting back on the time they spend playing video games

Some other interesting and noteworthy statistics collected via the survey include the following:

72 percent of teens say that they often or sometimes check for messages and notifications first thing in the morning, just after waking up.

56 percent of teens report feeling lonely or anxious if they find themselves separated from their cherished phones.

36 percent of parents admit that they, like their teen children, spend too much time on their phones.

51 percent of teens report that their parents are distracted by their phones when teens try to have a conversation with them.

57 percent of parents say they set screen time restrictions for their teens in an attempt to limit phone use.

Smartphones are deeply embedded in our day to day activities, so these numbers are perhaps unsurprising.

What is both surprising and more than a little disturbing is the fact that a significant percentage of both teens and parents report that excessive cellphone use impacts their school and work performance, with 31 percent of teens admitting that their phone is a source of distraction that causes them to lose focus in school, and 39 percent of parents reporting that they lose focus at work for the same reason.

Unfortunately, while the statistics are illuminating, there are no easy solutions here.  There’s little evidence that self-imposed use limits are having an impact.

Social Media App Filters Could Alter Beauty Perception

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File this one away under “unintended consequences.”  There’s a newly emerging trend in the medical community called “Snapchat Dysmorphia” that’s leaving plastic surgeons around the country to sound the alarm, and in some cases, scratch their heads in disbelief.

Recent research conducted at Boston University has discovered that the digital filters featured prominently in social media services like Snapchat are influencing how Millennials think about beauty.  It’s causing significant numbers of them to investigate the possibility of getting plastic surgery in order to look more like the filtered pictures of themselves.

The newly minted term, ‘Snapchat Dysmorphia’ is a variant of body dysmorphia, which is a mental health condition that causes people to be stressed and obsessed with the way they look.  Previously, one of the leading causes of body dysmorphia has been the unrealistic standards of beauty portrayed in magazines and on televisions. These media portrayals include supermodels with perfect bodies setting a standard of perfection that few can ever hope to achieve.

The more recent trend, however, is an increasing percentage of young people wishing to look more like their filtered-image selves, with, as the report highlights, “fuller lips, bigger eyes, or a thinner nose.”

The researchers went onto say, “This is an alarming trend because those filtered selfies often present an unattainable look and are blurring the line of reality and fantasy for these patients…overall, social media apps, such as Snapchat and Facetune, are providing a new reality of beauty for today’s society.  These apps allow one to alter his or her appearance in an instant and conform to an unrealistic and often unattainable standard of beauty.”

If you have a child who spends a significant amount of time on social media, then it’s something to keep a close eye on. Based on the data, this trend is only going to get stronger over time.

Microsoft Is Keeping Classic Skype, For Now

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Microsoft recently found itself on the receiving end of more than a little user rage when they made significant changes to Skype, with the release of version 8.  The company’s original plan was to model Skype 8 after several different social media services, but the users found the new interface to be both annoying and frustrating.

On the face of it, Skype 8 boasts a number of impressive enhancements, enabling users to screenshare inside calls, connecting with up to 24 users simultaneously and sharing up to 300MB of files via the Skype application itself.  Plus, it offers free HD video.

Unfortunately, users weren’t pleased with the fact that the redesign relied on a single window. This makes it impossible to multitask with separate conversations occurring in different windows. Some of the new features lacked professional polish (like emoji’s and @mentions).  These features would be fine for a consumer grade app, but the desktop version of Skype is something that businesses rely on heavily, and those features are of little value there.

It caused such an uproar in the Skype user community that the company abandoned their plans to end support for Skype 7 on September first, and re-branded it as “Skype Classic,” leaving it in place for the time being.  Ultimately, the feeling is that “Skype Classic” will be killed off at some point, but for now, Microsoft has chosen to listen to their user base and continue offering support for it.

The future, however, is uncertain.  While the temporary stay is useful, it is not yet known how long that will hold. The company might intend to go back to the drawing board where Skype 8 is concerned and re-think some of their design decisions to make the new version more palatable to Enterprise users.  Time will tell.

The Internet May Be Hurting Your Sleep

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Can you imagine life without the always-on internet?  If you’re like most people today, it’s a simply indispensable tool, and the thought of suddenly being without it makes you shudder and brings images of the Dark Ages to mind.

It’s glorious, no doubt, and it really is a remarkable tool, but unfortunately, it’s not all upside.  A recent study funded by the European Research Council has concluded that access to broadband internet access costs you as much as 25 minutes of lost sleep every night.  Considering that most of us are already getting by on far too little sleep, that’s not good.

Luca Stella, one of the researchers responsible for the study, had this to say about it:

“Internet addiction and technology use near bedtime are often blamed as a major cause of the sleep deprivation epidemic.  Yet the empirical evidence on this relationship is still limited.  In our study, we first show descriptive evidence that the use of digital services at night is correlated with shorter sleep duration.  Then, exploiting differences in the access to high-speed internet caused by the pre-existing telephone infrastructure in Germany, we analyze the relationship between high-speed internet and sleep.  We find that access to broadband internet reduces sleep duration and sleep satisfaction.”

While the report is clearly bad news, in many ways, it merely confirms what we already knew.  It seems self-evident that if you spend time surfing the web just before bed, you’re probably going to get sucked in, which is going to cut further into your already limited sleep time. Sure enough, we now have evidence that supports this notion.

What is interesting in the report, and something that runs counter to most people’s assumptions, is that people in the 30-59 year age range suffered more sleep loss than those in the under 30 crowd.

A fair question then, is how much sleep are you getting?  If you’d like more, it might be time to consider curtailing late-night internet use.

New Tools Help You Limit Your Social Media Time

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Facebook and Instagram are rolling out new tools designed to help manage how much time you’re spending on those two social media platforms.

On Facebook, the new feature is called “your time on Facebook,” and on Instagram, it’s called “Your Activity,” but both features do essentially the same thing.

They monitor and report on how much time you’re spending on the platform and can be fine-tuned by users to temporarily mute your push notifications.

The changes are being rolled out in an effort to address concerns that a number of groups are now raising. The concerns are about the addictive feedback loops built into social media apps. These feedback loops have been demonstrated to have a negative effect on the well being of users who get sucked in too deeply.

The new features will be rolled out to 99 percent of the users on each platform.  The company is withholding the new features from 1 percent to allow for comparative testing.

Once they become available, the new features can be found under the “Hamburger Menu,” which is the nickname for the three vertical lines at the top right-hand corner of the Facebook app.  On Instagram, the new feature can be found under the settings menu, accessible by tapping the gear icon on your Instagram profile.

It remains to be seen whether these new features will have the desired effect.  Since they have to be manually activated, odds are that the impact will be minimal. For a certain subset of users who seem not to be able to control their social media addiction on their own, it might provide just enough of a boost to make a difference.

Even if that proves not to be the case, it’s clear that the company takes the matter seriously, so we can expect to see more from them on this front in the months ahead.

Twitter Is Getting Tough On Apps

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Twitter has long had a reputation for being at the mercy of bots that have been used to sway public discourse and opinion.

Often, these bots are controlled via Twitter API apps that allow the authors to automate most of their actions, such as tweets, follows, and likes.

In the face of Facebook’s recent grilling before congress, Twitter has decided to take a more proactive stance, and has recently announced major changes to their policies.

The first part of the company’s statement to that effect reads as follows:

“Starting today, all new requests for access to Twitter’s standard and premium APIs are required to go through a new individual approval process.”

In addition to the newly announced approval process, the company moved decisively to cut off more than 143,000 apps they deemed to be in violation of the company’s terms of service.

The more robust approval process requires app developers to provide more information about themselves and the ultimate purpose of the apps they design.  Additionally, Twitter has put a hard cap on the number of apps that developers can create and manage, which tops out at ten.  If developers need to run more than that, they’ll need special permission from Twitter, and they’ll have to provide a compelling reason to justify the need.

Beginning September 10th, 2018, the company will be placing additional restrictions on every Twitter App which will control their use rates.

The new rate limits (per app) will be:

300 Tweets and Retweets per hour

1,000 likes per 24 hours

1,000 follows per 24 hours

15,000 direct messages per 24 hours

The company reserves the right to either remove or further restrict these limits for legitimate reasons.

On top of all that, Twitter has also modified its Twitter API support page to include an option for reporting “bad apps” that break one of the company’s policies.  According to the company, the combined effect of all of these changes should “help cut down on the ability of bad actors to create spam on Twitter via their APIs.”

While it remains to be seen how effective these changes will be, kudos to Twitter for taking action.

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