The number of 15-24 year olds in the U.K. visiting social networking sites reached 6.8 million in June, up 14 percent compared to the previous year, according to a new report from comScore.
The overall audience of social networkers in this age group is up substantially during the past year, but the time spent on social networking sites is down 9 percent. The overall decrease in time spent on the sites appears to be due to younger users spending less time on secondary social networking sites.
“Recent reports have suggested that 15-24 year olds in the U.K. are moving away from social networking sites because they’re no longer cool as older users have encroached on their virtual space. comScore research indicates that is simply not the case,” said Mike Read, SVP and Managing Director, comScore Europe.
“In fact, more 15-24 year olds are using social networking sites than a year ago, so there isn’t any particular aversion to the activity. What does appear to be happening is that younger users are beginning to consolidate around Facebook and are spending less time on competing sites.”
Younger users are increasingly moving towards Facebook as their main social networking destination, even though Facebook has a significantly older user profile than MySpace and Bebo. Specifically, 77 percent of Facebook visitors are age 25 or older, compared to 65 percent of Bebo visitors and 69 percent of MySpace visitors.
“These data suggest that not only are younger social networkers not avoiding their older counterparts, but they are actually gravitating towards a site that skews more heavily towards users age 25 and older,” added Read.
“It’s likely that the age of one’s peers on a social networking site is not a critical factor in how 15-24 year olds will spend their time online. But as people’s digital media lives become increasingly fragmented, users are craving the simplicity of fewer platforms – and the dominant social networking platform right now appears to be Facebook.”
