More Americans step away from FB

42% of FB users in US say they had ‘taken a break’ from the FB

washington — A large number of Americans are stepping back from Facebook in the wake of recent scandals over the social network’s handling of private user data, a study showed on Wednesday.

The Pew Research Center report found 42 per cent of US Facebook users said they had “taken a break” from the platform in the past 12 months, and 26 per cent said they had deleted the Facebook app from their phone.

Among those in the 18-29 age group, the break with Facebook appeared more pronounced, with 44 percent claiming to have deleted the Facebook mobile app.

Although the survey did not indicate how many users were quitting Facebook entirely, the findings suggest a clouded outlook for the company which has been roiled by news of the hijacking of private data by political firm Cambridge Analytica and concerns of foreign influence campaigns on the platform.

“Significant shares of Facebook users have taken steps in the past year to reframe their relationship with the social media platform,” researcher Andrew Perrin said.

According to Pew’s survey, three-fourths of US Facebook users have taken some steps to change how they interact with Facebook, including more than half who have changed their privacy settings. Perrin said the concerns about Facebook appeared to transcend political affiliation.

“The poll found that nearly identical shares of Democrats and Republicans (including political independents who lean toward either party) use Facebook,” he said.

“Republicans are no more likely than Democrats to have taken a break from Facebook or deleted the app from their phone in the past year.”