Pew study: 44 percent of young adults deleted Facebook app in past year

Almost half of the young adults in the U.S. who use Facebook deleted the app on their phones over the past year, according to a new study examining Americans’ changing relationship with Facebook.

The Pew Research Center study, published on Wednesday, found that 44 percent of adults between ages 18 and 29, which is composed of Gen Z and millennials, had deleted the app from their phones.

{mosads}The study is only the latest to find that Facebook is losing its grip on younger users, who are increasingly turning to other platforms including YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram, the latter of which Facebook also owns.

Overall, 26 percent of Americans polled have deleted the app in the past year.

The study also found that many users in the U.S. had changed their privacy settings in the past year. Over 54 percent of adult users polled altered their privacy options in Facebook, as well as 64 percent of users between ages 18 and 29.

The study didn’t attribute the changes to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal but did note that media coverage of Facebook data accessed by third parties might have played a role in individual choices.

Many have grown concerned about Facebook’s data collection practices in the wake of revelations in the spring that the British research firm, hired by the Trump campaign, improperly obtained data on 87 million Facebook users.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was ultimately grilled by lawmakers on the issue at a Congressional hearing.