The Wall Street Journal reviewed Facebook documents showing the company agonized over how to attract ‘tweens’ – children between 10 and 12 – to its platform. According to a document from 2020 viewed by The Journal, tweens are a valuable but untapped audience.
In a document from 2019, Facebook considered whether it could use play dates to foster tween engagement by encouraging them to use Messenger Kids, while chatting with friends, The Journal reported. The Journal reviewed documents which stated Facebook’s goal was ‘messaging primacy with US Tweens,’ which went on to state that ‘winning with Teens’ was Facebook’s goal.
Furthermore, it was revealed in the documents that Snapchat and TikTok were growing in popularity among teenagers, and the company feared losing ground to these apps. ‘Global teen penetration on FB is low, and acquisition appears to be slowing down,’ one document from March 2021 noted, per The Journal.
Another document showed teens’ daily Facebook usage had decreased by 19% over the last two years, according to the report. Research from Facebook found that children and teens perceived the platform as being for older people. ‘Facebook is for old people – old as in 40,’ the 11-year-old told Facebook’s researchers, according to The Journal’s report.
Facebook said in a statement posted on its blog that The Journal’s report was ‘nothing more than recycling previous reporting.’ The Wall Street Journal is one example of a company that makes an effort to appeal to younger generations. Since our competitors are doing the same thing, it would actually be newsworthy if Facebook didn’t do this, the company said.
In its statement, Facebook apologized for the language it had used about playdates. Unfortunately, the language we used was insensitive and does not reflect our approach to building the app. Facebook said it wanted to better understand how families and kids were using the Messenger Kids app so that it could improve their experience with it.
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Instagram has come under intense scrutiny after The Journal reported, as part of a series of articles on Facebook, that Instagram’s internal teams were aware that the platform caused body-image problems for young girls.
According to Facebook, Instagram’s articles series contained ‘deliberate misrepresentations.’ On Monday, Instagram announced that they were pausing the development of a version of their app specifically for tweens, called ‘Instagram Kids.’ Both Facebook and Instagram have age limits on their platforms, which means children under 13 aren’t allowed to use them.
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