Study Claims Facebook Users to Drop by 80 Percent

Facebook’s popularity spread like a disease in its early days — and it will dissipate like one, as infected Facebook users experience a full recovery over the next few years, a new Princeton University study claims. According to the study, the growth and decline of social media sites can be modeled after that of a disease epidemic. By applying such a model to Facebook’s own life cycle, based on data from Google search queries, the social media leviathan is projected to lose 80 percent of its users between 2015 and 2017.
As the study’s authors note, a central feature of the model is that it incorporates “infectious recovery dynamics such that contact between a recovered and infected member of the population is required for recovery.” The idea is that people will be less likely to use Facebook if their friends, family and acquaintances have stopped using it.

The model used to predict Facebook’s fate was also used to explain the rise and fall of Myspace, which it did accurately. The researchers behind the study assert that this accuracy demonstrates the validity of their model, though the study has not been peer reviewed.
As reported by the social network itself in a press release issued last October, Facebook currently has 1.19 billion users, an 18 percent year-over-year increase. However, the authors of the study note that “Facebook has already reached the peak of its popularity and has entered a decline phase, as evidenced by the downward trend in search frequency after 2012.” While Facebook is still gaining users, it is not gaining them as quickly as it did during its ascendancy. Eventually, it won’t attract enough new users to make up for those leaving the site, the study predicts.
If the model’s extrapolations are accurate, the number of Facebook users will dwindle to 238 million — and with it, the company’s dominant position in the social media landscape. Still, 238 million users is nothing to scoff at, and Facebook offers a range of behavioral and demographic insights about users that many other social media sites don’t. If the study proves correct, Facebook’s reach will be diminished, but its data could still prove useful for marketers and advertisers.
Facebook is still the most popular social network for sharing content. However, Twitter and Pinterest are quickly gaining ground. In Europe, 45 percent of people use Twitter as their primary content-sharing platform, compared to 47 percent for Facebook. In the U.S., 29 percent of people use Pinterest as their primary social network to share content, while 36 percent of people use Facebook. These points suggest that marketers should diversify their efforts across a range of channels in order to safeguard against changing currents in the social media environment. As always, marketers must do their due diligence and research their target audiences before making assumptions about their behavior or interests.