Pew Report on Teens and Social Media

This new report from Pew had few surprises. It reports that 93% of teens use the Internet, many to share something they have created (39%), tell stories, and interact with other people on social network sites (55%).

Specifically,

• 39% of online teens share their own artistic creations online, such as artwork, photos, stories, or videos, up from 33% in 2004.
• 33% create or work on webpages or blogs for others, including those for groups they belong to, friends, or school assignments (unchanged since 2004).
• 28% have created their own online journal or blog, up from 19% in 2004.
• 27% maintain their own personal webpage, up from 22% in 2004.
• 26% remix content they find online into their own creations, up from 19% in 2004.
  

Girls blog more while boys are avid users of video-sharing websites like YouTube, and digital images - stills and videos - have a big role in teen life, often starting conversations with people. While email is big with adults, teens prefer IM and social networking sites for communicating with people. Some good news was that most teens still prefer face-to-face and phone communication to text-based chatting and that most restrict access to photos, which suggests the messages about safety are getting through.

It was interesting tome how the pattern of communication is changing for teens - sharing digital images as a conversation is very different for me - and distinguishes me as "the older generation" - nice feeling!

Photo credit: mattkeefe