Only 13% of young adults — ages 18 to 24 — have ever owned a photo album. That doesn’t mean they aren’t taking photos, however, as nearly 300 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day. According to Zephoria, 50% of all 18 to 24 year olds go on Facebook as soon as they wake up in the morning, or more realistically, late afternoon.
These almost two billion Facebook users have seldom complained about the photo album features on Facebook, but that could all change.
The Verge reports that Facebook is threatening to delete photos that were synched to Facebook via mobile device and stored in a private photo album.
The only way to stop Facebook from deleting your photos? Download their app, Moments, Facebook’s own photo-sharing app. Here is Facebook’s recent statement on the matter:
“Photos you privately synced from your phone to Facebook will be deleted soon. Earlier this year, they were moved to Moments, a new app from Facebook. If you want to keep these photos, download and log into Moments before July 7. If you don’t want Moments, download these photos directly to your computer from your Facebook profile before July 7.”
According to The Guardian, this move should come as no surprise because of the similar action Facebook took with its Messenger app. Facebook removed chat from the main app and forced users to install the specific Messenger app — which increased the app to more than 900 million users.
KKTV reports that the Moments app has been around for one year and allows for users to send images to their Facebook friends. Despite the app being around for a year, Facebook has utilized the technology since 2012. Facebook could continue to seamlessly store these photos, like they could have continued to support Messenger on the Facebook app, but they are hoping to force people to downtown the app and turn Moments into another one of the most popular apps.