• Reports claim Facebook recently lost 11 million users in the U.S and UK
  • The majority of people quitting the site blamed concerns over privacy
  • Other reasons included fear of addiction, and shallow conversations

By Victoria Woollaston

PUBLISHED: 10:28 EST, 17 September 2013 | UPDATED: 10:41 EST, 17 September 2013


Facebook users are quitting the social network in droves due to privacy concerns and fear of internet addiction, according to new research.

Increasing numbers are taking part in what's been dubbed 'virtual identity suicide' and deleting their accounts.

Analysis of more than 600 people, by researchers from the University of Vienna, found that data protection issues and social pressure to add friends were also among the reasons for leaving.

Others quoted shallow conversations, general dissatisfaction and loss of interest in the site.

Facebook users are quitting the social network in droves due to privacy concerns and fear of internet addiction, according to research from Vienna University.

Facebook users are quitting the social network in droves due to privacy concerns and fear of internet addiction, according to research from Vienna University. Analysis of more than 600 people found that data protection issues and social pressure to add friends were also among the reasons for leaving

REASONS FOR QUITTING FACEBOOK

Privacy concerns: 48.3 per cent

General dissatisfaction: 13.5 per cent

Shallow conversations: 12.6 per cent

Fear of becoming addicted: 6 per cent

Earlier this year research showed Facebook had lost nine million monthly users in the United States and two million in Britain.

Psychologist Stefan Stieger from the university recorded each of the 600 participants' responses to assessment measures based on their level of concern over various issues.

Those who stopped using social media were more concerned about privacy, had higher addiction scores and tended to be more conscientious.

Professor Stieger said: 'It could be possible that personality traits influence the likelihood of quitting one's Facebook account indirectly via privacy concerns and Internet addiction.

'In this case, the concern about one's privacy and Internet addiction propensity would not be directly in charge for quitting one's Facebook account, but would function as mediators of the underlying personality traits.

Compared to the sample of those who continued to use Facebook, the quitters were older, on average, and more likely to be male.

Quitters were older, on average, and more likely to be male. Reasons for quitting Facebook were mainly privacy concerns at 48.3 per cent, general dissatisfaction at 13.5 per cent, negative aspects of online friends, 12.6 per cent, and fear of getting addicted at 6 per cent

THE GADGET THAT CAN WEAN PEOPLE OFF FACEBOOK

A pair of procrastinators from MIT recently came up with a shocking way to tackle their Facebook habits -  a keyboard device that electrocutes them when they spend too long on the site.

The Pavlov Poke gadget sits under the wrist of a computer user and monitors which sites and applications are used.

If the user is meant to be working, but keeps getting distracted by Facebook, for example, or spends too long chatting on forums, the device sends an electric shock.

Compared to the sample of those who continued to use Facebook, the quitters were older, on average, and more likely to be male.

Reasons for quitting Facebook were mainly privacy concerns (48.3 per cent), followed by a general dissatisfaction (13.5 per cent), negative aspects of online friends (12.6 per cent) and the feeling of getting addicted (6.0 per cent).

Brenda Wiederhold, editor of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behaviour and Social Networking which published the findings, said: 'Given high profile stories such as WikiLeaks and the recent NSA surveillance reports, individual citizens are becoming increasingly more wary of cyber-related privacy concerns.

'With photo tags, profiling, and internet dependency issues, research such as Professor Stieger's is very timely.'

The comments below have not been moderated.

Facebook gives me the opportunity to see the pictures of my relatives in the Philippines. Also, my Facebook friends are less than 15 and mostly relatives, no outsiders. This way, no privacy issues,all fun.

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Facebook should be called Loserbook.

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I only use it to check out band info and the odd campaign. I have a ghost account.

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Without facebook so many sad people would have to phone 478 friends every morning just to tell them they had toast for breakfast ! - beachbum1965, Suffolk, 17/9/2013 21:04===== lol! So true, so funny! Laughed for minutes. For me FB is what you make it. You decide what to post when, how often as well as what others post about you, which for me is nothing, set to the tightest settings, no one needs to know where I am, what I'm eating, how I feel... For me it's a great way to be in touch with overseas family and see all the great pics that we wouldn't see any other way. Other than that the games and so many posts are lame and actually sad. And I'm blown away by all the idiot alcoholics who think they sound cool acting stupid at 47. Gee, I wonder why you can't keep a man, woman, job, apartment, plant going.... put down the bottle. And I feel sorry for those proclaiming their life perfect. Like they forget we know the rest of the story. I wish it were true but you're not fooling anyone.

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Without facebook so many sad people would have to phone 478 friends every morning just to tell them they had toast for breakfast !

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I dumped Facebook years ago, remember staying in touch using phone calls and emails?

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I use Facebook for the games or to see what pictures of me friends put up. I rarely put up any pictures or posts.

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It's not just Facebook, it is social media and internet services in general. Google's privacy policy isn't exactly wonderful either. This being said, the most frequent reason I log into Facebook is for games.

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I quit Facebook two and a half years ago and haven't missed it one bit since! One of the best decisions I ever made

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I never bothered with that garbage because I never felt enough interest in reading the type of inane comments and photos that I knew would clutter such a format, even though those comments and photos would be from people that I know. I would rather just see them in person, talk on the phone, or even email. I have always maintained that FB was a passing fad for most.. I much prefer personal interaction above all, but ironically, even the limited reading of comments from faceless strangers on a site such as this, is preferable to FB for me at least.

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