It’s a well known principle that apps need to be open to be successful, and the easiest way to do this is to provide content from the moment the app is opened. On opening the Facebook app, the Twitter app, the Tumblr app and others showing a negative trend in this survey, the opening screen simply states: “Log In / Register” with two empty text fields. What sort of 14-16 year old wants to create an account, enter information and spend time gaining access to a brand new service which they’re not sure they’ll even continue using?

Talking about the app Polar for iOS, Luke Wroblewski, its designer has been keen to emphasise that reducing barriers to the content increases engagement with the app and long-term use. The thing that differentiates these second-generation social media phenomenons – Keek, Wanelo, Instagram, Pinterest, Vine – is the way by which they reduce these barriers. They presuppose social media and add a third button to that first screen – ‘connect with Facebook/Twitter’.

Facebook and Twitter require information – they thrive on knowing about their users and using that knowledge to provide a platform on which they can do many things: gaming, photos, videos, chat and more. Through developing as single-service apps, these second-generation social media startups have dropped the barriers to entry which make Facebook and Twitter look outdated to teens, and have captivated them.

Teens are now into the single-purpose app. The photo-sharing app (Instagram), the I-want-to-buy-things app (Wanelo), the video-sharing app (Keek/Vine). The decline of Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter shows that platforms themselves will have difficulty taking precedence in this new world. To gain traction with teens, apps need to be exciting, different and clear in their message – nobody knows exactly what Facebook is for any more, and ‘everything’ isn’t a good enough answer for teens.

Facebook unveiled their new ‘Home’ concept today. Android devices will be able to become fully, immersively, integrated into “the social network”. The promotional renders are compelling, and they practically shout the key message: this could be your life.

But it’s not.

Facebook have hired a team of professional photographers to produce these concepts (Why wouldn’t they? They have to sell a product, and that product has to look attractive) and they look beautiful. But is daily life really like that? I know we live in an Instagram-dominated world, where everyone’s a #photographer producing #art and #sharing it with their #friends on #Facebook, but, and it’s a big one, is a cameraphone ever going to produce something that looks right on a 4-inch-plus Full-HD screen? Facebook has created a world full of fake plastic people – and why blame them? They live in California, they’re probably friends with photographers who take better pictures, and they have the more relaxed lifestyle that fits these images. Whether ‘Home’ will work for the rest of us is open to debate.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of my iPhone and it’s camera (see my iPhone album for evidence of that), but I can already see that not everyone will be enjoying the idyllic experience that Facebook wants us to see, and, more importantly, Facebook Home is the first time that it becomes truly noticeable.

One of the promotional video clips shows a girl lying in bed flicking through Facebook on her phone. You can, and will, imagine she’s flicking through images like the ones below:

I’m pretty sure I can see what would happen if I had an Android phone, and I know it’s one of the more common experiences. Facebook never thought what would happen when you wake up only to be greeted by a photo of one of your friends, drunk, vomiting or passed out, or any other embarrassing photo from a night out. Nobody wants to see that.

Then again, maybe they were too busy preparing for a marathon, reminiscing about a camping trip or visiting their local barista to try out a new roast blend.