A new study has provided solid evidence that teenagers are leaving Facebook.
Around 3 million teens aged 13 to 17 have deserted the social network in the past three years, along with another 3 million users in the 18 to 24 age bracket, some of whom were obviously older teens, said a study from market researcher iStrategy Labs.
Even though Facebook's total American users have increased by 33 million in that time, the study increases concern that the site "has become uncool with the younger set," according to Yahoo! Finance.
Facebook has more than a billion users, but its widespread appeal could be damaging its reputation among teens who don't want their parents, teachers and extended family reading their posts. Young adults have been drawn to other networks such as Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, which are not as crowded.
Bringing in teens again was behind Facebook's decision to purchase Instagram in 2012, and Mark Zuckerberg reportedly offered Snapchat $3 billion for the messaging service.
Facebook officials have hinted at problems in keeping teens interested.
"Our best analysis of youth engagement in the U.S. reveals that usage of Facebook among U.S. teens overall was stable," CFO David Ebersman said in October. "We did see a decrease in daily users, specifically among younger teens."
According to TIME, advertisers desire a younger, more easily influenced audience, and data revealing that teens are leaving could hurt Facebook's ad rates.
Ebersman's remarks in October briefly affected the value of Facebook shares, but the company has since recovered, the stock more than doubling in the last six months.
Twitter, which went public in November, saw a 37 percent growth in shares, a jump partly due to "excitement that the short-messaging service was becoming more popular than Facebook with young people," according to Yahoo.
Facebook is planning to roll out a trending feature in the next few weeks that is intended to compete with Twitter's trending topics.
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