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Tag: Teens

  • TikTok Unveils New Protections for Teens

    TikTok Unveils New Protections for Teens

    TikTok has unveiled new protections for teens, including limiting notifications at night.

    TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms, but has been mired in controversy. The company has been accused time and again of not respecting user privacy, and has taken heat for abusing the privacy of its youngest users.

    The company is taking action to address those concerns, rolling out a number of additional protections, including to Direct Messaging, public videos and nighttime notifications.

    TikTok will turn the Direct Messaging setting for teens 16-17 who join the platform, or existing accounts that have never used DMs, to ‘No One.’

    When uploading new videos, teens under 16 will be prompted to select who can view their video when they upload their first one. A similar prompt will display when teens choose to allow their videos to be downloaded.

    Another major step TikTok is taking is limiting nighttime notifications in an effort to help teens develop healthier digital habits.

    We want to help our younger teens in particular develop positive digital habits early on, and we regularly consult with leading paediatric experts and youth well-being advocates to develop our Youth Portal, bullying prevention guide, and other features that support youth-well being. Now, we’ll be drawing upon this research to make changes that reduce the time period during which our younger teens can receive push notifications. Accounts aged 13-15 will not receive push notifications from 9pm, and accounts aged 16-17 will have push notifications disabled starting at 10pm.

    TikTok still has a long way to go before it establishes a strong track record of respecting and protecting user privacy, but these measures are certainly headed in the right direction.

  • Microsoft: Teen “Sextortion” Common Online

    Microsoft: Teen “Sextortion” Common Online

    A new Microsoft study shows that teen sextortion is running rampant online, with 44% saying they’d personally experienced sexual threats or knew of instances among family and friends. Of those who encountered sextortion, more than one-third said it happened nearly every time they go online!

    The study, “Civility, Safety and Interaction Online – 2016,” polled teens ages 13-17 and adults ages 18-74 in 14 countries about 17 different online risks. Because of the nature of the preliminary results Microsoft decided to release certain results early in order to warn parents and the public of the dangers their children are facing on the internet.

    “We’ve chosen to make this preliminary release, featuring data about teens in the back-to-school timeframe to remind young people about the need for smart, safe and respectful online habits at home, at school and on the go,” said Jacqueline Beauchere, Microsoft’s Chief Online Safety Officer. “We will follow with an early look at key data from the adult respondents in the weeks ahead.”

    Microsoft will be releasing results of the full study on February 7, 2017 which is international Safer Internet Day.

    The study focused on a variety of online risks including:

    • Reputational – “Doxing,” and other damage to personal or professional reputations
    • Behavioral – Being treated meanly; experiencing trolling, online harassment or bullying, and encountering hate speech
    • Sexual – Sending or receiving unwanted sexts and making sexual solicitations; being a victim of sextortion or non-consensual pornography (aka “revenge porn”), and
    • Personal and Intrusive – Being the target of unwanted contact, or experiencing discrimination, “swatting” or exposure to extremist content/recruiting.

    Youths reported much higher incidences of unwanted online contact than adults, although both share an equally high concern about the risks. “Youth are especially troubled by the expectation of sexual threats becoming worse,” says Beauchere. “What may come as a surprise is that youth were more likely than adults to have confronted or retaliated against their offenders. Nearly six in 10 (58%) of young people said they met their offenders in person compared to 43 percent of adults. Youth were more likely to have been in contact with their offenders when negative behaviors involved online meanness, unwanted contact or trolling.”

    The study noted that “unwanted contact” was the primary concern among both teens and adults, with 43% saying they had been approached inappropriately online. When you add in their circle of friends, 63% of people have had unwelcome contact.

    For more tips regarding online safety visit Microsoft’s YouthSpark Hub.

  • This Is What 90% Smartphone Penetration Looks Like

    This Is What 90% Smartphone Penetration Looks Like

    ComScore just released a new report on U.S. smartphone penetration – or, if you don’t like the sound of that, call it the percentage of a certain market using smartphones.

    Bottom line: everyone has a smartphone. Actually, about 77% – but that’s a whole lot. When you look at the younger generations, it’s even more staggering.

    “Millennials continue to be the pace-setters for smartphone adoption, with 18-24 year olds and 25-34 year olds both hovering around 90 percent adoption. While teens have historically had slower adoption rates than their slightly older counterparts, they have been making up ground quickly and are now at 85 percent,” says ComScore.

    Would you like to see what 90% smartphone penetration looks like? Here’s a recent performance on The TODAY Show, and speaking of penetration, it just so happens to be The Weeknd performing his track “Earned It” off the 50 Shades of Grey soundtrack.

    Ok, not everyone in the crowd is between the ages of 18 and 24, but the percentage of 13-17, 25-34, and 35-44-year-olds with smartphones isn’t far off that 90% mark:

    “When I was growing up in the 1980s, cable TV was still seen as something of a luxury and I remember that several of my childhood friends not having it in their households. By the time the 1990s rolled around, almost everyone I knew had cable. It wasn’t that cable had gotten any more affordable, it was just that what was happening on cable TV had grown as a part of our culture. At some point those who could afford cable TV and didn’t have it probably began to feel like they weren’t keeping up with the times,” says ComScore’s Andrew Lipsman.

    Precisely. If it’s not on Instagram, did it even f*cking happen?

  • Florida Sheriff Charging Teen with ‘Hacking’: Change the Law If You’re Mad

    Sheriff Chris Nocco of the Pasco County, Florida, Sheriff’s office isn’t all that concerned that his department is being mocked across the country.

    Last week, we told you about the department’s decision to charge a 14-year-old hacker mastermind with a felony after he infiltrated his school’s network and put hundreds of lives in danger.

    And what I mean by that is he figured out the password by looking over a teacher’s shoulder, logged in, and set some softcore porn as a teacher’s desktop background.

    More context from our previous coverage:

    Hacker extraordinaire Domanik Green, 14, has been charged with offense against a computer system and unauthorized access after he “logged onto the school’s network on March 31 using an administrative-level password without permission. He then changed the background image on a teacher’s computer to one showing two men kissing.

    The sophisticated hack that allowed Green access to the impregnable system involved looking over a teacher’s shoulder and watching her type the password. It turned out to be the last name of a teacher at the school. Edward Snowden weeps.

    One of the main points of contention for authorities is that one of the computers Green ‘hacked’ contained FCAT questions on it. Green didn’t access or alter these files, however.

    “Even though some might say this is just a teenage prank, who knows what this teenager might have done,” Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said.

    Thoughtcrimes leader and amateur future teller Chris Nocco is standing by his decision, despite ridicule from all corners of the internet.

    From the Tampa Bay Times:

    Nocco is sticking to his guns. Green was suspended from school for three days for similar activity back in October, and the sheriff said it was obvious he hadn’t learned his lesson.

    “I think, unfortunately, when the story’s being told in other (publications), they’re not talking about the fact that he committed this crime previously,” Nocco said Monday. “We enforce the law. And if we don’t enforce the law, nobody else will.”

    Also, he said, the crime with which Green is charged is deemed a felony by the state Legislature. If people want to change it, they can write lawmakers, he said.

    Write your congressperson, folks. Nothing we can do about it now. Change the law if you’re mad.

    People are mad, for sure. Here’s a sampling of posts currently sitting on the Pasco County Sheriff’s Facebook page:

    – Felony charges because of what a 14 year old kid ‘might have done?’ Since when do we charge people based on the seriousness of crimes they ‘might’ commit. Your county sucks.

    – What has become of our society when felony charges are given for a harmless prank? We don’t live in the realm of “what if”. “who knows what this teenager MIGHT have done” -Sheriff Chris Nocco. I sincerely hope that this gets laughed out of court.

    – Missing children. Unsolved murders. And yet, you guys are arresting a kid for being a kid. Pigs

    – This is why even us law abiding Americans hates the police.. You people should really be ashamed of yourselves.. I mean, how do you sleep at night? Oh.. come to think of it… I’ll bet you sleep quite well.

    – I think it’s hilarious how you can charge a 8th grader with a felony and quite possibly ruin his life over a prank. When your own jackholes can just resign when they commit felonies. The double standards you have created in this country does not go over looked. You expect the public to show you respect and to trust you when you do the exact opposite. History will remember a ti.e in this country when our law enforcement were corrupt and could not be trusted. Shame on you.

    – This kid is 14 and the sheriff wants him to have a felony conviction on his record for the rest of his life. Despicable.

    – I’m embarrassed for you Chris.

    It’s probably unlikely the kid will see the inside of a courtroom – but the complications from this, and the legal bills likely to be incurred by his family – will not be inconsequential.

    Image via Pasco Sheriff’s Office, Facebook

  • 14-Year-Old Hacker Mastermind Infiltrated School Network, Charged with Felony

    A Florida eighth-grader is facing felony charges after accessing his middle school’s computer network and changing a teacher’s background.

    Hacker extraordinaire Domanik Green, 14, has been charged with offense against a computer system and unauthorized access after he “logged onto the school’s network on March 31 using an administrative-level password without permission. He then changed the background image on a teacher’s computer to one showing two men kissing,” according to the Tampa Bay Times.

    The sophisticated hack that allowed Green access to the impregnable system involved looking over a teacher’s shoulder and watching her type the password. It turned out to be the last name of a teacher at the school. Edward Snowden weeps.

    One of the main points of contention for authorities is that one of the computers Green ‘hacked’ contained FCAT questions on it. Green didn’t access or alter these files, however.

    “Even though some might say this is just a teenage prank, who knows what this teenager might have done,” Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said.

    And he’s right. He most certainly could’ve hacked the mainframe and accessed the terminal. There he could’ve swapped out the launch codes for Microsoft Paint pictures of penises.

    It’s a good thing Green was caught when he was, as he appears to be a serial offender. According to the Times, he was once part of a criminal enterprise that involved logging into school computers and snapping selfies with the webcams.

    “You have somebody that clearly doesn’t learn their lesson. You have somebody who had the ability and if they had the intent could mess around with the FCAT system,” Sheriff Nocco told WTSP.

    If Green beats this rap, word on the street is Anonymous is looking to recruit.

    Image via Thinkstock

  • Only 60% of Parents Admit to Facebook Spying on Their Teen

    In what appears to be a study conducted in a room full of liars, Pew reports that only 60% of parents admit to checking up on their teenagers via social media.

    That means that 40% of parents have never, ever, not even once peeked at their 14-year-old’s Facebook profile, Twitter page, Instagram profile, or anything.

    Even accounting for parents who don’t care about their kids enough to even fake interest, parents that have never heard of social media, parents without computers, parents without hands to operate computers, and parents who give their teens privacy, this is a pretty high number.

    According to Pew, moms were slightly more likely than dads to peek at their kids’ Facebook page.

    I guess there are just a lot of parents who don’t know how to look up their kids on Facebook even if they wanted too, because 83% of Facebook-connected parents said they were friends with their teens.

    If parents aren’t checking their kids’ Facebook pages, they certainly should be – as they’d probably find some interesting stuff. Teens really need to learn how to use privacy controls.

    “While most teen Facebook users (85%) say their parents see the same content as everyone else, 5% say they’ve adjusted privacy settings to limit what their parents can see. Even though many teens haven’t used technological tools to shield their posting activity from their parents, teens have other ways to hide information from their parents’ gaze. A majority of teens (58%) also have obscured the content they share on social media in general, using inside jokes or other coded messages that only certain friends can understand,” says Pew.

    Yeah, your parents don’t get your jokes. Sure they don’t.

    Image via Thinkstock

  • Teens Tweet Group Sex Video, Get Hit with Child Porn Charges

    Teens Tweet Group Sex Video, Get Hit with Child Porn Charges

    Four Joliet, Illinois teens could spend the next few years in a juvenile facility after posting a group sex video on Twitter.

    Three boys, aged 14, 15, and 16, and one girl, aged 15, were arrested after the girl’s mother notified police of the footage, which was circulating around Twitter. All four teens have been charged with distributing child pornography.

    Of course, it’s more complicated than that. Did the teens technically distribute child porn? Yes, it was a group sex video involving minors. But they were the minors in the video. Can teens really be charged with child porn if it’s their own body in said “porn”?

    Yes they can, and have. Over the past few years, with the rise of sexting, smartphone cameras, and social media, states have been scrambling to figure out how to deal with teens’ technological expressions of sexuality.

    Teen sexting laws vary from state to state – with some having already penned new laws to address the practice. Other states, however, can only consider the act of disseminating your own naked photos and videos as child porn.

    Illinois authorities have chosen the latter route in this case.

    “The child pornography offense that was charged is in place for a reason, because we don’t want to accept that type of behavior as a society. It’s making a strong statement, and I think it’s important to do so, to send a message to others that kids shouldn’t be involved in this type of behavior, and hopefully this will serve as a deterrent,” said Joliet Police Chief Brian Benton.

    Did you catch that? There’s a huge problem with this logic, and Benton’s statement reads like the laws are in place to legislate morality, as opposed to really protecting children. Don’t like what teens are up to? Threaten them with lifelong sex offender designation. That oughta do it.

    “It’s an incident you may not recover from,” said Benton.

    Exactly. Are we really going to put teens on sexual offender databases for the rest of their lives for being kids and making arguably dumb decisions? I’m sure we can all agree that posting a sex tape on Twitter is ill-advised – especially for a 15-year-old. But is it really a sex crime?

    Image via Thinkstock

  • Teens, Get the Hell Off Your Phones and Drive

    This post is brought to you by cranky old men everywhere.

    Teens, put down your goddamn phones and look at the road. Stop changing tracks on Spotify, stop texting bae. Stop dancing with your friends and looking at stuff in your passenger seat. Please look at the road. You’re going to die.

    Check out this two minute video from AAA:

    Before you ask, yes, those are real in-car videos from crashes involving distracted teens. And yes, all of the kids in that video are incredibly lucky.

    AAA has just concluded what they claim to be “the most comprehensive research ever conducted into crash videos of teen drivers.” What they found is that distracted driving among teens is much worse than they thought.

    “Researchers analyzed the six seconds leading up to a crash in nearly 1,700 videos of teen drivers taken from in-vehicle event recorders. The results showed that distraction was a factor in 58 percent of all crashes studied, including 89 percent of road-departure crashes and 76 percent of rear-end crashes. NHTSA previously has estimated that distraction is a factor in only 14 percent of all teen driver crashes,” says AAA.

    Now, all of those “distractions” aren’t cellphone related. About 12% are. But 6% of the crashes are caused by “reaching for an object” and 10% by “looking at something in the vehicle.”

    Also, this:

    Researchers found that drivers manipulating their cell phone (includes calling, texting or other uses), had their eyes off the road for an average of 4.1 out of the final six seconds leading up to a crash. The researchers also measured reaction times in rear-end crashes and found that teen drivers using a cell phone failed to react more than half of the time before the impact, meaning they crashed without braking or steering.

    Cranky old man* knows that adults text and drive, too. But cranky old man also knows that teens have the highest crash rate of any group of drivers on the road – 963,000 drivers aged 16 to 19 were involved in police-reported crashes in 2013.

    “It is troubling that passengers and cell phones were the most common forms of distraction given that these factors can increase crash risks for teen drivers,” said AAA CEO Bob Darbelnet. “The situation is made worse by the fact that young drivers have spent less time behind the wheel and cannot draw upon their previous experience to manage unsafe conditions.”

    Exactly. Your experience is weak.

    *Person who was 19 nine years ago

  • Millennials Are Really Into Snapchat

    Millennials Are Really Into Snapchat

    That about says it. Millennials, categorized by comScore as those aged 18 to 34, have a new favorite toy in the social media realm.

    According to comScore’s most-recent Mobile Metrix, Snapchat is now the third most-popular social app for millennials. It boasts 32.9 percent penetration, trailing only Instagram and Facebook (43.1 percent and 75.6 percent, respectively).

    That means that more Millennials are snapping ephemeral photos than are using Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Vine, or Tumblr.

    And when you look at the even-younger crowd, those aged 18 to 24, Snapchat meteoric rise is even more pronounced:

    “Long term success in the social media sector is no given, and there are certainly several examples of companies that have both ascended into the stratosphere of successful tech companies and of ones that are no longer relevant. Achieving critical mass is an important step in eventually reaching the winner’s circle, and with Snapchat currently at 18 percent penetration among smartphone-using adults it would appear to be right in that sweet spot. If usage begins to accelerate significantly from this point forward, who knows how big it can eventually get?” asks comScore.

    First off, don’t kick MySpace while it’s down. That’s just mean. But to the salient point – is Snapchat poised for a breakout – well, is it? What do you think? The app currently handles well over 700 messages a day, is clearly a hit with the kidz these days, has somehow prompted Facebook to create two crappy copycat apps, and has just been given a seemingly comical $10 billion valuation. Critical mass may have already been achieved.

    Or, the Snapchat bubble might burst. Like comScore said, it wouldn’t be the first time that a high-flying social property went full Icarus.

    Images via comScore, Snapchat/iTunes

  • Teen Threatens to Kill Everyone in Texas Town on Facebook

    There are two things that teens should know about posting incendiary, possibly terroristic messages on Facebook in 2014. First, someone’s going to notice and you’re going to get caught. Also, they’re going to take that shit seriously.

    Meet Melissa Johnson, which isn’t her real name. Johnson is the Facebook pseudonym created by a 13-year-old Texas girl in order to bully a cancer patient and threaten to kill the whole town.

    News92 in Houston reports that first, the teen sent a Facebook message to a 13-year-old boy currently fighting cancer. It said “you should have died.”

    Luckily, the boy’s mother intercepted the message.

    But wait, there’s more.

    It was a status, posted shortly after that incident, that put folks in Splendora, Texas on edge. “I am going to kill everybody in Splendora on July 13th.’” Rather ambitious, but pretty straightforward.

    Police say that Facebook was a bit resistant to help them with their investigation into the threat, but eventually gave in. Soon, police had arrested the girl.

    What’s her prize for this wonderful episode of Facebook douchebaggery? Terroristic threat charges, which is a third-degree felony! Police also took all of her electronic devices, which to a 13-year-old girl, may have been the worse of the two.

    “We hope this young lady will learn from her mistake and do something positive with her life,” said Constable Hayden. “We also hope this is a wakeup call for parents. We cannot stress enough the importance of knowing what your children are doing online and talking to them about the serious consequences they’ll face if they engage in this type of behavior.”

    Yeah. That about sums it up. I don’t mean to sound Orwellian here, but you should probably keep an eye on what your 13-year-old is doing online. Thirteen-year-olds have this annoying habit of being stupid as hell.

    Image via Montgomery County Constable, via HLN

  • Facebook’s Bleeding Teen Users, Right? Not So Fast…

    Facebook, that magical place of college hookups, ex-stalking, and most importantly, exclusivity, is no more. To many, the real Facebook died years ago when Mark Zuckerberg and company decided that it had to be an egalitarian network. Facebook died when your grandma started liking your posts.

    What we have now is Facebook, said with a palpable derision. Facebook is where your mom shares a little TMI. Facebook is where your news feed is overstuffed with ads for Combos and real estate ventures. Facebook is your dad, in social network form. Facebook just isn’t cool with the teens anymore.

    Or is it? What seems like an accepted fact these days, that Facebook is dropping teens like flies, may not be entirely accurate.

    Do you have teenagers? What do they think about Facebook? Is it losing its draw? Let us know in the comments.

    But first, how did we get to this point? How did the ‘teens abandoning Facebook’ narrative develop? How did we get to the point where the President of the United States casually remarks that nobody’s really using Facebook (a billion+ user site) anymore?

    Though rumblings about a potential teen crisis began a couple of years ago, a major Piper Jaffray survey made waves in the spring of last year. The survey, which asked teens about the most important social networks in their lives, showed a decreased importance on Facebook (from 42 percent to 33 percent over a six-month period). Networks like Twitter and Tumblr seemed to divide Facebook’s share of teen popularity.

    Soon after, during Facebook’s second quarter earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg addressed the growing concern specifically.

    “One specific demographic I want to address is U.S. teens. There has been a lot of speculation and reporting that fewer teens are using Facebook. But based on our data, that just isn’t true. It’s difficult to measure this perfectly, since some young people lie about their age. But based on the best data we have, we believe that we are close to fully penetrated in the U.S. teen demographic for a while, and the number of teens using Facebook on both a daily and monthly basis has been steady over the past year-and-a-half,” said Zuckerberg.

    Fully saturated and steady, but not growing. But at least Zuckerberg assuaged concerns of a Titanic-sized teen leak, you know, if you believe a captain when he promises the ship’s integrity is just fine.

    He added:

    “Teens also remain really highly engaged using Facebook. Now it’s also worth mentioning that these stats are for Facebook only. Instagram is growing quickly, as well, so if you combine the two services together, we believe our engagement and share of time spent are likely growing quickly throughout the world.”

    Facebook had just snagged Instagram, an app that was growing (and continues to grow) at a very rapid rate among teens. But more on that later.

    Over the next few months, various studies surfaced, all showing a rapid decline in teen interest in Facebook. The language was harsh – Facebook is “dead and buried” among the teen demographic; teens are “embarrassed even to be associated” with Facebook.

    Again, Facebook responded to the chatter. In a post-IPO world, little fluctuations in use among certain demographics aren’t such a little deal. They mean quite a bit to investors. By the end of last year, Facebook had changed its tone a tad and admitted to a small decrease in daily teen users.

    “I want to say a few words about youth engagement on Facebook,” he said. “As we’ve said previously, this is a hard issue for us to measure because self-reported age data is unreliable for younger users, so we’ve developed other analytical methods to help us estimate usage by age. Our best analysis of youth engagement in the U.S. reveals that usage of Facebook among U.S. teens overall was stable from Q2 to Q3, but we did see a decrease in daily users specifically among younger teens,” said CFO David Ebersman at the Q3 earnings conference call.

    “We won’t typically call out such granular data, especially when it’s of questionable statistical significance, given the lack of precision of age estimates for younger users, but we wanted to share this with you now since we get a lot of questions about teens,” he added. “We’re pleased that we remain close to fully penetrated on teens in the U.S. Our monthly user numbers remain steady, and overall engagement on Facebook remains strong. We’ll continue to focus our development efforts to build products that drive engagement for people of all ages.”

    Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg was quoted as saying that the whole thing had been blown out of proportion.

    But the narrative persisted. Another study in early 2014 showed an 11 percent drop in active teen users. Another study showed an apocalyptic scenario for Facebook, a ghoulish nightmare of fast, unstoppable blood loss.

    Sure, Facebook has over a billion users – but it’s not cool anymore, especially among teens.

    But wait – what’s this?

    That’s the latest news from Forrester research, who asked over 4,500 teens about their social media use.

    What did they find?

    “The results were clear: Facebook remains young users’ favorite social network. More than three-quarters of online youth use Facebook – twice as many as use Pinterest or Tumblr or Snapchat, and more than use Instagram and WhatApp combined. And 28% of young users who are on Facebook say they use it “all the time,” a higher percentage than said this about any other social network.

    Or more simply put…

    “The bottom line: The sky is not falling. Facebook does not have a problem attracting or retaining teen users.”

    The takeaway is clear. Through teen use may have dropped a few points, Facebook is still the most-popular social network among teens – and it’s not even close. That sure seems to back up Zuckerberg’s original ‘saturation’ argument.

    And what about this?

    That comes to us from Niche, who looked at the social media habits of 7,000 high school graduates. They found that 47 percent of those surveyed say they use Facebook “a few times a day.” For comparison, the second and third place network in the department were the Facebook-owned Instagram (43 percent multiple times a day use) and Twitter, with only 28 percent admitting to persistent, daily use.

    Niche found that 87 percent of their high school graduates use Facebook in some capacity. For comparison, only 55 percent use Twitter at all, only 44 percent use Pinterest, and only 34 percent use Tumblr.

    “While some media outlets have reported teens tiring of Facebook in favor of whatever is the latest craze, Facebook still reigns number one in both total adoption and daily usage,” says Niche.

    Maybe those reports of Facebook’s teen death were a bit of an exaggeration? Or at the very least, short-sided?

    Facebook may not be leaking teen users at some mortal rate – but the company has to know that competition for teens’ eyes is getting fierce. Their $1 billion purchase of Instagram nearly two years ago could be seen as a move to snatch up an app, exceedingly popular with the younger crowd, before it got too big for its britches.

    Maybe that’s why Facebook (reportedly) tried to buy Snapchat for $3 billion late last year. Snapchat is literally making teens go crazy these days.

    Maybe that’s why Facebook, unable to court Snapchat, tried to make their own version.

    Maybe that’s why Facebook launched another Snpachat clone when the first one failed.

    Maybe that’s why Facebook is acquiring popular (among teens, especially) messaging service WhatsApp for nearly 20 billion dollars.

    Or maybe, just maybe, Facebook’s “teen problem” isn’t that much of a problem.

    What do you think? Does Facebook really have a teen problem? Is Facebook simply not cool anymore? Let us know in the comments.

  • Snapchat Has to Be Thrilled with This Little Anecdote

    What’s so terrifying that it’ll make high-school students panic like they’re seven and someone just took away their recess?

    Apparently, it’s not a giant zit on prom night or the revelation of a secret burn book. It appears that the worst thing on planet Earth is one goshdarn moment without Snapchat.

    Kansas high-school teacher and possible Snapchat plant Tracie Schroeder says that she can’t remember anything disrupting her classroom more than the latest Snapchat update.

    What did Snapchat do? Well, yesterday, they finally fulfilled the promise of their name by adding a chat function to the primarily photo-based message service. Not only that, but they also added live face-to-face video chat. Apparently, it was so distracting, that Schroeder had to start taking phones away. And then things went south. Fast.

    As she tells Business Insider:

    Today was the first day in a long time I actually took phones away. I have no idea what all was included in the update, but you would have thought it was crack. They seriously could not keep away from it. I even had one girl crawl under the table with her phone.

    At that point I took all the phones away and we had a little reminder chat about when it was appropriate to use your phone and when it was not. Also that it was rarely appropriate to hide under the table.

    For quite awhile now, kids have had a real anxiety about being separated from their phone, but today it was near panic. I am hoping by tomorrow some of the novelty will have worn off and we can get back to business.

    Separation anxiety, it seems.

    Teens be lovin their Snapchat. And this little anecdote has to be sweet, ephemeral music to the company’s ears.

  • Teen Stabs Friend 65 Times Over Nude Facebook Selfies

    In well-that’s-just-a-horrible-turn-of-events news, a Mexican teen was stabbed 65 times after posting racy photos of herself and her best friend on Facebook, according to police in Guamúchil, Sinaloa.

    The NY Daily News reports that Erandy Gutierrez, 16, fatally stabbed Anel Baez, also 16, on March 19th. Apparently, nude Facebook selfies prompted the attack. Baez reportedly made the post, which infuriated Gutierrez.

    When Baez tried to make things right by inviting Gutierrez over to her home, things got violent. Police say Gutierrez grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed Baez a sickening 65 times. Baez died from her injuries.

    As if this story couldn’t get any stranger, Gutierrez was only apprehended when she attended Baez’s funeral.

    Post by Anel Baez.

    Notus provides an account of some menacing tweets Gutierrez sent before the fatal attacks.

    “Pueda que parezca muy calmada, pero en mi cabeza, te he hatado al meno tres veces,” she tweeted. In English, this roughly translates to “I may seem very calm, but in my head, I’ve killed you at least three times.”

    According to Notus, Gutierrez also confessed on Twitter after the murder.

    “I am an asshole…OMG I did,” she reportedly tweeted.

    Gutierrez’s Twitter and Facebook accounts have both been deactivated. The image of the two girls you see above is from Baez’s Facebook account.

    Gutierrez will be charged with murder, but her age could mean she’ll serve a reduced sentence, possibly seven years.

    Just brutal.

    Images via Facebook, h/t Gawker

  • Teen Sues Parents for Tuition and Living Expenses

    A teen in New Jersey decided that she no longer wanted to follow her parents’ household rules, so she did what other teens of age do in similar situations–she ran away. While most teens who decide they want to live by their own rules eventually get a job to support themselves (before ultimately deciding to go back home), 18-year-old Rachel Canning decided to sue her parents.

    It didn’t work.

    Judge Peter Bogaard denied Rachel’s request today, which included $650 per week for support, back pay, future college tuition and other expenses. The judge says he will reconsider Rachel’s request for college tuition after she submits her FAFSA paperwork, but for now, the teen doesn’t get a dime.

    Rachel, who is an honor student and already has a $20,000 scholarship, claims that her parents kicked her out late last year, which is why she says she is entitled to the funds. Rachel is living with relatives of her best friend, the Inglesinos, and this family is paying for the lawsuit.

    Tanya Helfand, Rachel’s attorney, accuses the Cannings of not doing enough to rectify the situation.

    “Any reasonable, caring parent would be so devastated and embarrassed by this situation, and they would reach out to the Inglesinos and they would reach out to their daughter, either through therapy, working with the Inglesinos to try and wrangle in this situation and make it right,” Helfand said.

    Rachel’s parents, however, paint a very different picture of the events. Sean Canning, Rachel’s father and a retired police chief, says that Rachel left on her own after refusing to follow several household rules, including keeping curfew, doing chores and being respectful.

    “Living in our house, there’s rules,” Canning said. “There’s minor chores. There’s curfews–when I say curfew, it’s usually after 11 o’clock at night.”

    Further, Canning says that Rachel is welcome to move home whenever she decides she is ready to comply with their rules. “This whole thing is just destroying our family,” Canning said. “We love our daughter. She’s our pride and joy. The door is wide open. We want her to come home.”

    Even though Canning hasn’t paid for any of Rachel’s private school tuition since she left, he does say that he never refused to pay for college tuition. Regardless, the judge did say that Rachel’s parents have to keep the status quo on her college savings fund.

    Do you think that the judge made the right decision with the teen’s lawsuit against her parents or should the parents provide financial support even though their daughter moved out? Add your comments below.

    Image via YouTube

  • Another Study Finds Teen Facebook Use On The Decline

    Yet another study has come out indicating that teen Facebook use has dropped significantly.

    Mashable points to data from GlobalWebIndex, saying that active teen users in the U.S. fell 11%. But Facebook still dominates the landscape.

    “The site continues to experience declines in levels of active usage but the extent of the drop in the second half of 2013 (down 3%) has been significantly over-exaggerated in some reports; it is still hugely popular among all demographic groups and there have in fact been increases in the audience sizes for its apps,” the firm says in a report.

    For comparison, YouTube usage is also down 3% according to this survey. Meanwhile, Facebook-owned Instagram is up a whopping 23%, the most of any network measured.

    Usage from the 16-24s demographic is only up on YouTube, Instagram and Tumblr, according to the report.

    Facebook losing teens has been a popular storyline throughout the past year or so, but the conversation really ramped up when Facebook CFO David Ebersman made comments on one of the company’s earnings calls.

    “Our best analysis of youth engagement in the U.S. reveals that usage of Facebook among U.S. teens overall was stable from Q2 to Q3, but we did see a decrease in daily users specifically among younger teens,” he said.

    Later, COO Sheryl Sandberg downplayed the idea that Facebook has a problem with teen usage, saying that reaction to the comment was blown out of proportion. It didn’t help that Facebook was reportedly trying to acquire teen darling Snapchat for billions of dollars.

    Since then, other studies have come out indicating that Facebook does have a teen problem.

    Last month, a report from a professor of material culture at University College London, who is part of the EU’s Global Social Media Impact Study, found that Facebook is “dead and buried” among the 16-18-year-old demographic.

    As recently as last week, iStrategyLabs released a report indicated that Facebook lost over 11 million addressable high school and college-age members over the past three years.

    Image via Thinkstock/Josh Wolford

  • New Data Shows Just How Many Teens Facebook is Losing

    New Data Shows Just How Many Teens Facebook is Losing

    Though it may not mean the end of the world’s most popular social network, the demographic shift in Facebook members is leaving some analysts worried. Already reports are showing that Facebook is dead to teens, who are switching to more private platforms such as Twitter and messaging apps. Now new data is showing that, yes, Facebook has failed to keep up its teen member numbers over the past few years.

    Market research firm iStrategyLabs this week released a new report on Facebook demographic that shows the social network has lost over 11 million addressable high school and college-age members over the past three years. High school Facebook membership has dropped a whopping 58.9% since 2011, while college Facebook membership has dropped a similar 59.1%. While the huge growth of college alumni (up nearly 65%) in the past three years shows that many of the first Facebookers are sticking with the service, the loss of so many college students shows that even some high schoolers who began their social media experiences on Facebook are moving on to newer platforms.

    Facebook demographics

    As seen in the chart above, the age groups most quickly abandoning Facebook seem to be the youngest. The number of children aged 13 to 17 on Facebook dropped over 25% during the past three years while the highest growth was seen in the 55 and over age group. Facebook now boasts around 56 million addressable members between the ages of 35 and 54.

    With these sorts of numbers it isn’t hard to see why teens might seek out a place online where their parents (and grandparents) might become a part of their immediate social world. In addition, the proliferation of smartphones in the past half-decade seems to have given more private platforms such as Twitter and Snapchat extra value to younger social media users.

    Image via iStrategyLabs

  • Monster Energy Drinks Investigated By Attorneys

    Your company may want to stop pushing the envelope of your product if it has a history for being a potential causation of five deaths from reports by the Food and Drug Administration.

    Monster Beverage Corporation, the makers of the popular Monster Energy drink has been pitted against the combined forces of east and west: a New York state attorney general and San Francisco city attorney are investigating the company’s marketing towards children.

    San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman joined forces last month after a federal judge in California tossed out a lawsuit filed by Monster; the company wanted to stop Herrera’s ongoing investigation that first began in 2012.

    Herrera filed a lawsuit against the company that claimed that Monster Energy drinks posed serious health issues as well as violating California state law by misbranding and marketing them towards children.

    Roughly 3,000 miles away in New York, Scheniderman issued subpoenas to multiple energy-drink makers as well as Monster as part of his ongoing investigation.

    “We are disappointed that Monster has remained defiant in marketing products to children,” Herrera said. “We hope this effort will cause the company to correct its irresponsible marketing practices.”

    Monster Beverage Corporation didn’t have an immediate comment on the joint effort, spokesperson Tammy Taylor said.

    Hold the tall large aluminum can of Monster and look closely and you’ll find a warning for all:

    (image)

    Not not that… this:

    (image)

    “Limit 3 cans per day. Not recommended for children, pregnant women, or people sensitive to caffeine.”

    Yet despite the disclaimer, Herrera asserts that the company pushes its product on minors.

    According kidshealth.org, at most, minors should ingest no more than 100 mg of caffeine per day.

    In December 2011, 14 year old Anais Fournier died of cardiac arrest due to caffeine toxicity after consistently consuming two 710 ml cans (3 cups) of Monster Energy per day. The combined amount of Fournier’s daily caffeine intake was 475 mg (14 cans of Coca Cola). It should be noted that Fournier had a pre-existing heart condition known as Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.

    Like a record, Monster has stated repeatedly that its drinks are safe, claiming ignorance of any deaths caused by its products.

    “As a company, we vehemently deny that drinking two cans of Monster Energy by itself can cause a death from caffeine toxicity,” the company said to WRC-TV back in 2012.

    What do you think? Kid friendly?

    Update: Spokesperson Tamara Taylor of Sitrick And Company said in an email to WebProNews that:

    “The sale and consumption of more than 10 billion Monster energy drinks worldwide over more than 11 years has shown that our products are safe. Contrary to allegations, they are not “highly caffeinated” and they are not marketed to children. In fact, a 16-ounce Monster Energy drink contains less than half the caffeine of a 16-oz (medium) size cup of Starbucks brewed coffee. Monster’s labels state: “Consume responsibly: Not recommended for children, people sensitive to caffeine, pregnant women or women who are nursing.”

    Images via Hoax Slayer, World Truth, Forbes, American Live Wire

  • Pretty Little Liars’ Bellisario Talks Teen Pressures

    Troian Bellisario, who is frequently recognized for her portrayal of Spencer Hastings in Pretty Little Liars, understands the difficulties teens experience when transitioning into adulthood. Bellisario was born into a priviledged Los Angeles family, and appeared to have an ideal life. The television star attended a private school and names Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen as two of her best childhood friends; however, she recently revealed a different picture.

    In an interview with Seventeen, the 28-year-old actress recently spoke about her own struggles when confronted with teenage pressures and how she can identify with Spencer. “I relate to Spencer a lot because I grew up in a very wealthy family around a very wealthy group of people. My high school was a private school where you went to an Ivy League. That’s just what was expected of you and nothing less. So I grew up never being okay with a ‘B’ because a ‘B’ was not good enough,” she said.

    “I would withhold food or withhold going out with my friends, based on how well I did that day in school. Being a teenager is chaotic because you’re kind of coming into your own, but you’re not an adult; you’re fighting with your parents over responsibilities and freedom. I didn’t know what was right and what was wrong, so I think I created this bizarre system of checks and balances to create order in my world. But it really backfired.” Belisario said before adding, “I was the youngest daughter, the perfect little girl. My school was a very intense college prep school. So it was about wanting to please my father and mother and wanting to be perfect to everybody. I just thought if I ever expressed to [my parents] any sadness or anger or anything that’s going on with me, they would disown me. I kept a lot of it bottled up inside, and it turned into self-destructive behavior.”

    Image Via Wikimedia Commons

  • Facebook is “Dead and Buried” to Teens, Shows Study

    With decade-old MySpace now considered part of the ancient history of the internet, it’s little wonder that questions are now forming over whether Facebook has long-term staying power.

    As the internet (and especially mobile platforms) have grown, Facebook has become less exciting and new, particularly to teens. A survey this fall found that Twitter has overtaken Facebook in popularity among teens. Last month questions also arose following Facebook’s third-quarter earnings call, in which it was revealed that daily Facebook use among teens may be dropping. Though Facebook later downplayed the significance of that revelation, investors are still worrying that other new social media tools such as messaging apps could drive down Facebook engagement (and ad revenue).

    A new report this month from Daniel Miller, professor of material culture at University College London, is now showing yet again that teens may be entirely done with Facebook.

    Miller, who is part of the EU’s Global Social Media Impact Study, has reported that 16- to18-year-olds in the UK are “embarrassed even to be associated” with Facebook. Miller went as far as to label Facebook “dead and buried” among that demographic.

    The problem, it seems, is that Facebook is now too mainstream, to inclusive. Along with Facebook’s growth came an influx of parents, grandparents, and teachers – the very people that teens were using Facebook to circumvent at the site’s outset. Miller’s report shows that teens are now using Facebook out of an obligation to stay in touch with family, rather than to keep up with friends.

    Instead of Facebook, says Miller, teens are now turning to more direct forms of social interaction. The aforementioned Twitter is still popular among the younger demographic, as is the Facebook-owned Instagram. In addition, messaging apps such as WhatsApp and SnapChat, which gained significant popularity during 2013.

    Though Facebook no longer appears to be the cool place for teens to hang out online, the company can still take solace in the fact that its massive userbase means it will be relevant for years to come. The only concerns now for Facebook should be whether parents will gradually follow in their teens’ footsteps away from the site or whether those even younger than teens will bypass Facebook altogether in favor of the new and the popular.

  • Facebook Downplays Problems With Teens

    When Facebook released its quarterly earnings report a few weeks ago, CFO David Ebersman brought up a decrease in young teen engagement during the conference call.

    “I want to say a few words about youth engagement on Facebook,” he said. “As we’ve said previously, this is a hard issue for us to measure because self-reported age data is unreliable for younger users, so we’ve developed other analytical methods to help us estimate usage by age. Our best analysis of youth engagement in the U.S. reveals that usage of Facebook among U.S. teens overall was stable from Q2 to Q3, but we did see a decrease in daily users specifically among younger teens.”

    “We won’t typically call out such granular data, especially when it’s of questionable statistical significance, given the lack of precision of age estimates for younger users, but we wanted to share this with you now since we get a lot of questions about teens,” he added. “We’re pleased that we remain close to fully penetrated on teens in the U.S. Our monthly user numbers remain steady, and overall engagement on Facebook remains strong. We’ll continue to focus our development efforts to build products that drive engagement for people of all ages.”

    These comments led to a lot of questioning throughout the media about if Facebook is losing teen interest, which could be a big problem for the company, as those teens will soon become adults. Rumors about Facebook trying to acquire SnapChat (which is popular with the kids) has only added fuel to the fire.

    Reports had Facebook offering as much as $3 billion – 3 times what it paid for Instagram – for the service. SnapChat has so far declined.

    All Things D has a new interview with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg out, in which she downplays the idea that Facebook as a problem with teen usage.

    On that matter, she told Mike Isaac, So I think the reaction to that comment has been blown out of proportion. As we said on the earnings call, overall U.S. teen usage of Facebook remains stable. The vast majority of U.S. teens are on Facebook. And the majority of U.S. teens use Facebook almost every day.’

    “I feel like I’ve lived this before,” she added. “When I was first at Facebook just a few years in, adults were getting into Facebook in larger numbers and there were all those memes that popped up — ‘Oh my God, my mom’s on Facebook!’ and that sort of thing. I’m pretty sure ‘Saturday Night Live’ even did a skit on it.”

    Yep, they did:

    During the interview, when asked about the Snapchat rumors, Sandberg said that Facebook is still dominating a growing market, and that market will see other players growing as well. Facebook seems fine with that, or at least it wants everyone to think it’s fine with that.

    Meanwhile, rumor has it that Facebook is looking into adding some Snapchat-like functionality to Instagram, another one of those growing players.

    Image: Thinkstock/Josh Wolford

  • Is Facebook Losing Teens?

    Is Facebook Losing Teens?

    The kids aren’t digging Facebook as much as they used to be. That’s the message that has been coming through the blogosphere, and finally, even kind of admitted by Facebook itself.

    Do you think Facebook is at risk of losing teens? Let us know in the comments.

    Facebook released its Q3 earnings this week. While there was plenty of positive information in there for Facebook, CFO David Ebersman brought up a decrease in teen engagement during the conference call.

    First, he noted, “728 million people used Facebook on an average day in September, up 25% from last year. Growth continues to be driven by mobile. In Q3 for the first time, daily actives on web declined year over year, albeit very modestly.”

    He then said, “I want to say a few words about youth engagement on Facebook. As we’ve said previously, this is a hard issue for us to measure because self-reported age data is unreliable for younger users, so we’ve developed other analytical methods to help us estimate usage by age. Our best analysis of youth engagement in the U.S. reveals that usage of Facebook among U.S. teens overall was stable from Q2 to Q3, but we did see a decrease in daily users specifically among younger teens.”

    He continued, “We won’t typically call out such granular data, especially when it’s of questionable statistical significance, given the lack of precision of age estimates for younger users, but we wanted to share this with you now since we get a lot of questions about teens. We’re pleased that we remain close to fully penetrated on teens in the U.S. Our monthly user numbers remain steady, and overall engagement on Facebook remains strong. We’ll continue to focus our development efforts to build products that drive engagement for people of all ages.”

    This is quite a different tone from the company that we were seeing after its Q2 report back in the summer. Mark Zuckerberg, at the time, brushed off the idea that teens were losing interest in Facebook, saying that teen use had held steady for the past year-and-a-half.

    “One specific demographic I want to address is U.S. teens,” he said. “There has been a lot of speculation and reporting that fewer teens are using Facebook. But based on our data, that just isn’t true. It’s difficult to measure this perfectly, since some young people lie about their age. But based on the best data we have, we believe that we are close to fully penetrated in the U.S. teen demographic for a while, and the number of teens using Facebook on both a daily and monthly basis has been steady over the past year-and-a-half.”

    “Teens also remain really highly engaged using Facebook,” he added. “Now it’s also worth mentioning that these stats are for Facebook only. Instagram is growing quickly, as well, so if you combine the two services together, we believe our engagement and share of time spent are likely growing quickly throughout the world.”

    Obviously something has changed, though Facebook is still high on its Instagram stats (150 million users as of a month ago).

    Last month, Facebook made some changes to its privacy policy, enabling teens to be able to post publicly.

    “Teens are among the savviest people using social media, and whether it comes to civic engagement, activism, or their thoughts on a new movie, they want to be heard. So, starting today, people aged 13 through 17 will also have the choice to post publicly on Facebook,” said Facebook at the time. “While only a small fraction of teens using Facebook might choose to post publicly, this update now gives them the choice to share more broadly, just like on other social media services.”

    It wasn’t long after that that a study from Piper Jaffray came out finding that Twitter has become more popular among teens than Facebook for the first time.

    26% of teens, according to the study, preferred Twitter, compared to 23% for Facebook.

    Given Twitter’s more public nature, you might agree with Facebook that kids just want to be heard, and to some extent, that’s probably true, but it’s only part of the story. Kids also increasingly don’t want to be heard by people they’re not talking to, and don’t want everything they do to remain on the web, preferring more communications with apps like Snapchat.

    According to a recent report from The Wall Street Journal, Facebook approached Snapchat about a possible acquisition for more than $1 billion (so more than it paid for Instagram), but the company declined.

    That in itself is a pretty powerful statement on Snapchat and teen use. Facebook is losing interest from young people, and both Facebook and Snapchat know it.

    Snapchat investor Bill Gurley said at TechCrunch Disrupt this week, “For kids, the Internet is increasingly becoming a place that you can’t share, that you can’t have fun, that you can’t socialize in the way you want to. I think that’s really the essence of Snapchat. It’s a platform where they can communicate and have fun without any anxiety about the permanence. You hear about kids not getting jobs because of what’s on their Facebook page.”

    Despite its challenges, Facebook still has plenty of teens, and probably will for the foreseeable future. Facebook simply has such a higher volume of users (including teens) than anything else, and that has to count for something.

    AdAge put out a new report called, “Marketers: Facebook Still Has Way More Teens Than Anyone Else.” In it, they quote PayPal head of social media Dave Peck as saying:

    “Find me a better network. You take half of what Facebook has, and it’s still more than anyone else has,” he said. “It’s not like I can advertise on Snapchat.”

    Pew found in August that 94% of teens had Facebook profiles, compared to just 26% for Twitter.

    Are you concerned about declining teen Facebook use? Let us know in the comments.

    Image: Thinkstock/Josh Wolford