Nielsen: The amount of time people spend on Facebook is declining

Mark
Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, which is seeing declining usage,
according to new research.
Chip
Somodevilla/Getty Images

• The amount of time people are spending on Facebook is
  dropping.
• Compared to a year ago, time spent on the social
  network has fallen by almost 7%, according to an analysis of
  new Nielsen data.
• Meanwhile, Google is eating into Facebook’s share of
  the total time people spend consuming digital media.

Facebook’s grip on people’s time and attention is slipping.

The amount of time people are spending on the Silicon Valley
company’s main social network has dropped by almost 7% from a
year ago, according to new data from research firm Nielsen that
was highlighted in a recent research note by Pivotal’s Brian
Wieser. Although users are spending more time with Facebook-owned
Instagram, it didn’t make up for the decline in usage of
Facebook’s primary service.

“Overall, including Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp,
Facebook’s share of digital consumption was at 15.2% vs. 16.9% in
the year-ago period,” Wieser wrote in his note.

Facebook will have around a 23% share of US digital ad revenue
this year, he said, noting that percentage is significantly
higher than its share of users’ time.

“To the extent that Facebook continues to hold a share of
consumption at around 15%, it implies Facebook is over-monetizing
vs. the industry to a significant degree.”

The Nielsen data wasn’t the only bad news for Facebook. A new
study of teens by Common Sense Media cited by Axios found that
only 15% of those aged 13 to 17 said their “go-to social site”
was Facebook. In 2012, it was the go-to site for 68% of that age
group.

Such statistics indicate how consumers are increasingly turning
away from the world’s largest social network in favor of its
competitors, underscoring the challenges facing the firm as it
attempts to rebound from a series of bruising
scandals.  

While Facebook is declining, Google is gaining

The Nielsen data offered an additional worrisome detail for
Facebook. Over the last two years, its share of digital content
consumption across all its apps has dwindled from just under 20%
to around 15%. By contrast, archrival Google, buoyed by YouTube,
has grown markedly — from less than 25% two year ago to almost
35% today.

Pivotal Research Group

Instagram was a bright spot for Facebook in the new Nielsen data.
The amount of time consumers spent on its service jumped 38% over
the last year, and it saw a 15% gain in users. Facebook, by
contrast, saw a much more modest 3.5% increase in users.

But as Wieser pointed out, because Instagram is so much smaller
and less mature than Facebook, it can’t offset all of the bigger
service’s losses.

“Instagram still only captures time from consumers equivalent to
around 15% of Facebook’s total,” he said.

Facebook’s decline comes against a backdrop of scandals and
shifts in direction. Battered from the fallout from everything
from Russian misinformation campaigns to the Cambridge Analytica
scandal, the company is trying to emphasise the quality of the
time users spend on its service rather than the amount of time
they spend.

But the extent to which this change in emphasis has affected
usage of Facebook’s services is unclear. Nielsen’s data indicates
the decline in usage dates to as early as 2016, long before the
company started de-prioritizing the amount of time users spent on
its apps and site.

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