Teens increasingly dumping Facebook in favour of Instagram: survey

Washington: While teenagers continue to lose interest in Facebook, they are showing an increasing interest in picture-sharing site Instagram, a new survey has found.

The conclusion was drawn in a semi-annual survey of upper-income and average-income teens in the United States from the investment bank and asset management firm. Piper Jaffray's spring 2014 report Taking Stock With Teens surveyed around 5,000 teens on a range of topics including fashion, video games, Apple products and social networks, CNET reports.

Piper Jaffray senior analyst and managing director Gene Munster said that they found Instagram was taking the mantle for the most preferred social teen site. Nearly 30 percent of surveyed teens chose Instagram as their most important social network, making it the top social property for youngsters for the first time in the history of the survey.

Munster said that the changes over the last six months showed that teens interest level in Facebook went from 27 percent to 23 percent, Twitter 31 percent to 27 percent, and Instagram 27 percent to 30 percent. Interestingly, just one year ago, Facebook was the preferred social network for roughly 33 percent of teens.