Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have all become household terms in the past few years, especially among teenagers. According to a study by Business Insider, 83 percent of teenagers use some type of social media. While Facebook is still the most popular social media network with 1.35 billion active users as of October 2014, studies show that Facebook is losing the interest of teenagers.

Facebook has lost over three million teenage users since 2012 according to a study by Princeton University. The number of teenage users has dropped 23.5 percent while the number of users 55 and older has increased by 80.4 percent.

Madison Prince, Div. 586, says she doesn’t use Facebook as much now as she did in middle school.

“All my weird family members are on Facebook now so it’s less fun,” Prince said.

She loves her family but Prince feels that social media should just be for her and her friends.

Prince also said she does not have time to waste on Facebook now that she’s older. She has to balance school and a job so after that she doesn’t have a lot of free time.

Forbes magazine came out with a survey in October which asked 7,200 teenagers across 41 states what their favorite social media outlet was, and Instagram came out on top. This survey also showed that Instagram’s popularity increased greatly between the spring and fall of this year, with the number of teenage users jumping from 69 percent in April to 76 percent in October.

Blyer Callahan, Div. 559, has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, yet he does not use any of them regularly.

“I talk to my friends all day at school — I don’t need to see what they have to say on the internet too,” Callahan said.

“Everyone complains too much on Facebook, all the pictures on Instagram are the same, and Twitter has too much drama.”

It’s not that Callahan is sick of his friends, and it’s not that he doesn’t care about them; he just would rather see his friends in person than talk to them online. He does not want to lose the per- sonal aspect of his relationships by basing friend- ship on social media interactions.

Callahan has not posted on Instagram or Twitter for over three months and Facebook for over a month. He keeps his Facebook account active because he does occasionally use it to keep in touch with family he doesn’t see often. He also keeps it for practical reasons such as talking to classmates about assignments and projects.

On the other hand, Rachel Rolseth, Div. 673, loves Facebook and uses it all the time. She could never get into Twitter or Instagram.

“I just don’t see the point in Twitter or Instagram. Everything you can do on those sites you can do on Facebook,” Rolseth said.

She likes that Facebook has more users than Twitter and Instagram. She finds Facebook convenient, easy to use, and a great way to talk with friends and family. The reasons other teens are leaving Facebook, or using other sites more, are the same reasons Rolseth stays with Facebook.

“I use Facebook to keep in touch with my family. That’s my favorite part of it,” Rolseth said.

Salvador Rodriguez, blogging for the LA Times, agrees with Rolseth. The LA Times published an article in January of this year challenging the Princeton study. In his article, titled “Could Facebook really lose 80% of users by 2017? Not likely,” Rodriguez argues that Facebook has reached levels that no other social media ever has, so it cannot be compared to sites like Myspace, Instagram, and Twitter.

“Facebook is used by companies to reach out to consumers, it’s used by users to message one another, it is used to sign into other apps and online services, and most importantly, it is the

world’s directory, ” Rodriguez reported. Lane’s Facebook page, “Lane Tech College Prep,” started in August, 2012 has 4,828 “likes” while Lane’s Twitter account, “LaneTech1440,” started in June, 2013, has 1,239 followers.