Before, teens with Facebook accounts could only share content with friends, friends of friends and specific custom groups. As of Wednesday, teens 13-17 years old will be able to post publicly and gain 'followers' on their profiles, just as anyone over 18 years old has the ability to do so.

Facebook recently blogged saying, "Teens are among the savviest people using of social media, and whether it comes to civic engagement, activism, or their thoughts on a new movie, they want to be heard. While only a small fraction of teens using Facebook might choose to post publicly, this update now gives them the choice to share more broadly, just like on other social media services."

To post publicly, teens will need to manually change their audience preferences on each post to 'public' before sharing. Note that the platform's audience settings will remain the same for all posts for all users, including the newly added teens. Having said that, a secondary reminder will pop up for teens after they choose to post publicly a following time.

Although we agree that younger generations are incredibly tech-savvy, we are curious to see how the recent changes will impact the current Facebook base. Teens naturally gravitate toward social platforms, but with the increase of the ability to share, will this simply add more noise to our already full newsfeeds, or will it simply mean that our community is better connected?

Tellus: How do you think this new freedom for teens will impact Facebook?

-- Samantha

We recently brought you an article on a 13-year-old claiming that none of the kids her age used Facebook. It got us wondering: If teens don't use Facebook, what are they using? According to this chart by Statista, Facebook is still the top dog when it comes to teens, despite what our friendly 13-year-old said. People say that Facebook is losing its younger audience, but looking at numbers like this, that doesn't seem to be the case. The drop from #1 Facebook to #2 Twitter, is huge. Sure, this data is looking at 2011 to 2012, and the numbers from 2012 to 2013 may be slightly different, but Facebook has a long way to fall before we start talking about any other platforms taking over.

We do agree that many teens are converting to the latest and greatest platforms, like Instagram and Snapchat, but Facebook has such a lead over other competitors that something drastic will have to happen before we ever see a new #1. The ability for one platform to cater to teens and adults alike is no easy task. Teens will always try and distance themselves from their parents and social media is no different. We agree that teens seem to be trending away from Facebook, but we also believe Facebook is here to stay. Even though teen usage numbers may decrease, we don't think it will be by much or for very long. Ultimately, we would not be surprised to see them figure out a way to bring those teen users back, stronger than ever.

-Mike & Samantha