Study: Many US users take Facebook break or delete the app
These figures should give Facebook pause: According to a survey, 42 percent of U.S. users have taken at least one break from the social network lasting several weeks over the past twelve months. Many have also deleted the app.
A good one in two Facebook users (54 percent) have changed their privacy settings in their Facebook profile in addition to abstaining from Facebook for several weeks. This was revealed by a recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, which interviewed around 4,600 people between the end of May and mid-June. According to the survey, just under one in ten people used the option introduced in the spring to download all their Facebook data. Younger users were significantly more active in adjusting their data protection settings, reports Pew.
One in four deletes app
In the survey, 26% of respondents also stated that they had deleted the Facebook app from their smartphones in the past twelve months. It remained unclear whether the application remained deleted afterwards - or was then reinstalled. Facebook's quarterly figures for the past few months show a stagnation of the 241 million users who are active at least once a month in North America - but no decline.
North America is by far the most important economic market for Facebook: The online network generates around half of its revenue there. Facebook earned more than 25 dollars per user in its home market last quarter - compared to a global average of less than 6 dollars.
Facebook has been rocked by the Cambridge Analytica data scandal in recent months and was also at the center of debates about fake news and Russian propaganda campaigns surrounding the 2016 US presidential election (AWP/SDA/DPA/ank)
