A study of how older teenagers use social media has found Facebook is "not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried" and is being replaced by simpler social networks such as Twitter and Snapchat, an expert has claimed.

Young people now see the site as "uncool" and keep their profiles live purely to stay in touch with older relations, among whom it remains popular.

Could Facebook be on the way out?

Professor Daniel Miller of University College London, an anthropologist who worked on the European Union-funded research, wrote in an article for the academic news website The Conversation: "Mostly they feel embarrassed even to be associated with it.

"This year marked the start of what looks likely to be a sustained decline of what had been the most pervasive of all social networking sites.