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July 11, 2006
Teens and the Internet
Lee Rainie and his colleagues at the Pew Internet and American Life Project recently made a presentation to the Congressional House Telecom Committee about teens and the internet. It's a good summary based on their years of research. And, it's only 8 pages long with big charts so it may be useful for using with staff, boards, executives and management!
Findings include:
87% of those ages 12-17 use the internet.
Teens from the poorest families lag in internet use.
Teens are technology rich and enveloped by a wired world.
Parental use of filters to protect youth online is growing.
In addition to employing filters, parents are trying other methods to stay abreast of their children’s online activities.
However, there are still large gaps in perception about how much parent-child monitoring is taking place: Most teens do not believe their parents are checking up on them, while most parents say they are.
The impact of filters and parental vigilance remains unclear: Parents and teens agree that teens are not careful enough online, and both believe that teens do things online that their parents would not approve of.
Bad experiences online keep some teens away from the internet.
Teens log on most often from home, but library use grows more than any other location.
Email is still a fixture in teens’ lives, but instant messaging is preferred.
Teens’ IM use eclipses that of adults.
IM offers ways for teens to express their identity and reshape technology to their purposes.
Most teens will block messages from those they want to shun or avoid.
More than half of online teens are Content Creators.
When it comes to sharing self-authored creative content, older girls stand out.
One in five online teens keeps a blog and 38% read them.
Teens surpass adults in blog keeping and reading.
Older girls are most likely to blog.
You can find it here as a PDF "Teens and the Internet".
Stephen
Posted by stephen at July 11, 2006 5:46 PM