Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat. The endless cycle of refreshing these three apps when bored is the teenage life in a nutshell. But what seems to be missing from the equation? Facebook. Where did it go?

The Washington Post claims that every year an estimated one million people leave Facebook and start to use the other three social media outlets mentioned before instead. The question of why people, teens in specific, are using Facebook less and less each year has many answers and all of them are logical.

Over the past 10 years or so, Facebook has become so widespread that parents, and maybe even grandparents have pages of their own.

“I used to love Facebook in middle school. Now my parents, aunts, and uncles are all on it, so I use other apps that they haven’t figured out how to use yet” says VHS junior Mark Riggio.

Most teenagers take pictures when they’re out with their friends on the weekend and would prefer for their family members not to see them. This is why Mark claims that he no longer utilizes Facebook to post pictures that are really only intended for his friends.

“If you get a friend request from your grandma, you’d have to be pretty heartless not to accept it” he says.  Mark claims that teenagers usually have two very different sides to them: the side when they’re around family, and the side when they’re around friends.  Facebook seems to be a threat that those two sides could potentially combine as one.

Twenty years ago, kids would attempt to escape from their parents by building a tree house in their backyard in which their parents were too old to climb. This generation is no different, they’re just online.

The Washington Post says “It’s hard to look cool when you’re hanging with mom and dad.” When mom or dad tag you in baby pictures, you begin to realize that there is no escape from your family on Facebook, other than abandoning your wall completely.

Another reason students are leaving Facebook is the specialization of other apps.  “I think that Facebook has so much to offer that it is almost overwhelming. You can post pictures, videos, written posts, and even use the messenger all in one app” says VHS junior Caroline Kirnan.

She also says that Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, and even Tumblr are taking over the social media game because each one of these apps is devoted entirely to what is only a small fraction of what Facebook has to offer.

In a generation where everything is about speed, efficiency and convenience, an app devoted to one thing and one thing only seems the most logical for teens to use. If you want to see pictures, go to Instagram, if you’re in the mood to see what’s trending, Twitter is right there, and if you want to see what someone is up to, they’re just a snapchat away!

“Facebook is so complicated that when you’re on it, you don’t know what to do since there are so many possibilities,” says Kirnan.

Once the older generations discover how to use the hot new apps, that is when the younger generation will be forced into creating something new.

There was a time very recently when it would have been hard to imagine that one day soon Facebook could become the same kind of relic of the past that MySpace has become.