A high percentage have also recently deleted the social media app entirely from their phones.
In what appears to be a mixture of trust issues with social media platforms, especially in light of the recent Cambridge Analytica scandals, as well as a general pushback against overuse of mobile devices, there appears to have been a massive downturn in the use of various social media apps.
As per the results of the study by the Pew Research Centre, out of the Facebook users that were asked, 42% of them have taken a break of several weeks or more from the social network.
Surprisingly, 25% of those asked had said they had deleted the app entirely from their mobile devices.
The breakdown of those who deleted the app entirely shows a massive generational issue at play, with 44% of users between 18 and 29 coming off the platform entirely, versus the 20% of people aged 50–64 who did so. For users over 65, that number dropped to just 12%.
Additionally, the poll revealed that over 50% of users had recently changed their privacy settings on the apps.
Considering that recent studies also showed that the pull-down and refresh button has links to slot machines, and was created on a similar idea to the addictive machines, it makes sense that some folk are noticing the negative connotations of using the app too much and cutting back on it in their day to day lives.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
