There is literally no escape from Facebook when you're in high school. It's the gossip system online. Opt out and you might as well put on a Pocket Protector. I've talked to downright misanthropic teenagers who have 1500 Facebook friends... and, with no exception, hate most of the people on there that they know. Ever wondered where all those facebook "conversations" that get posted to Reddit come from? Well, yeah, a lot of them are faked but their genesis is from Facebook's bizarre ecosystem whereby a person I barely know can post something, provoke a conversation with someone I've never even heard of, and before long I'm having a shouting match with someone I've never met, never will meet, and hadn't even known of the existence of before now. Most young people I know don't like facebook. It has become a necessary evil, however. Kind of like Microsoft Office.
It's actually not that easy for me to say. Currently, I have 793 "friends" on FB. I primarily used it to announce new green shows etc but many of those people write me messages/comments all the time. I am constantly pulled back in to the site. I haven't "quit" yet but I have shut off all notifications and made a post that said, "from here on out I will rarely be checking FB. If you need me, my email address is in my profile". I've since invited my closest "friends" here and I have regular conversations with them about shit I actually care about. But it's not "easy" to leave when so many people use it as the primary source to contact me. Your point about the teenagers isn't lost on me though, I get it. Still, the article that started this conversation isn't all that interested in data mining teenagers thoughts about the GOP. Right? If you get all the "adults" off of FB, it would crumble.