Why Teens Are Rebelling Against Facebook

Teens are leaving bigger social networks for the privacy of messaging apps, but experts say Twitter is managing to hold on to more of this sought-after younger demographic than its bigger rival. The percentage of teens active on Facebook dropped by 9% during 2013 and by 7% on YouTube, according to a global survey of over 40,000 Internet users by research firm GlobalWebIndex — but only fell by 3% on Twitter. Twitter is also the preferred social network by 27% of adolescents versus 23% for Facebook, according to the “Spring 2014” survey of 7,500 U.S. teens by Piper Jaffray; in Spring 2013, Facebook beat Twitter by 33% to 30%. (Facebook declined to comment.)