[experimentsin]

I wonder if the teens who favour Instagram and Snapchat today will nevertheless age into people who get more out of Facebook as they get older.

When you're young, most of the people you know and think about are still right there around you and you see them almost every day. You haven't left too many people behind yet. But that changes quickly over time and an increasing proportion of the people you know and care about, the ones you met at a particular place and time in your life, are no longer close by. Being able to keep in touch with those people's comings and goings and relationships and family lives to the (relative) depth afforded by Facebook probably becomes more attractive and more valuable.

So although Facebook may be losing its original stomping ground to simpler, more targeted alternatives, perhaps both Facebook and its active user base are maturing together.