Are people leaving Facebook?

A slight decline in daily active Facebook users for the first time in its history, mentioned in parent company Meta Platforms' earnings report, sent the stock into a nose dive last week.

However, looking deeper into the user numbers, their decline is not necessarily as dramatic as investors reflected. The losses were greatest in Africa, India and Latin America, suggesting that Facebook is nearing global saturation.

Usage of Facebook's family of apps – Instagram, Messenger, Whatsapp – grew modestly. And the number of monthly active users for Facebook still rose slightly from its previous quarter.

That could indicate that people are still using Facebook on a monthly basis but possibly spending less time on it, or that the role Facebook plays has evolved over time.

That's particularly the case with the younger generation as Facebook increasingly struggles to pry millennial and Gen Z users from hipper, splashier rivals such as short-form video service Tiktok.

Facebook is pouring its energy into its Tiktok clone Reels to try to better engage younger users as it pivots from appealing to older users to serving young adults as its “North Star.”

Whether that's working remains to be seen. Most younger people view Facebook as an occasional place to drop in, not their go to.

Younger social media users interviewed by USA TODAY revealed that Facebook's presence in their lives has dramatically changed over time, going from a casual site used for social connection to a formal one full of ads and third-party content.

“In the past, Facebook was more for social connection. I would check Facebook Newsfeed very often to see what people have been up to, but now because it's so cluttered, I have to scroll a lot to even see people,” says Sonali Dane, 25.

Dane emphasized that her “cluttered” feed was filled more with ads and memes as opposed to updates about real people in her life.

Contributing: Brett Molina, Jessica Guynn