Well, we knew that already! But if you want to get an overview of how Teens are using social media then the new PEW report on Teens & Social Media has some amazing facts. In November I wrote about Digital Natives in the Workplace which talked about how the stat’s below will shift the future.
93% of teens are online & 64% are creating content!
- Girls are blogging more (35% compared to 20% of the boys)
- Boys are more likely to watch & upload videos (21% vs 10%)
- Digital images – almost 90% have posted photos or videos! & interact by commenting
For communication, the cell phone is the primary choice of 70%
- 60% texting
- 47% messages over social networks
- 22% email (J. Owyang’s prediction that email is dying is showing)
(the reason that it is more than 100% is because teens use combinations of the above)
This quote is quite interesting in that mentorship is acknowledged as a key role. This phenomenon can be seen with any community no matter the age range.
MIT professor Henry Jenkins notes that, along with the rise in popularity of participatory media applications, there has also been a concurrent development of “participatory cultures” that serve to encourage all of this user-contributed content. Jenkins defines a participatory culture as “a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices.”
Take away –
Reading the report is like looking into the not too distant future. In next five years the use of social media & participation in networks are going to keep increasing at an exponential rate.
[…] I’m inspired to write this particular post after reading Connie Bensen’s post Teens Using Social Media and the link she included to PEW’s recent study on the […]
We have an 18year old, digital native, new hire (45 days now). He’s been an enlightening source of information on how his generation uses the Web & Social Media. He thinks he started using the Web in the 4th grade (but claims it may have been the 3rd, or maybe the 5th).
I asked him what his personal draw to Facebook was and his immediate reply was:
* “Tagging”
* Seeing what friends are up to
I inquired about “Tagging” and he’s referring to the FB feature where you see where you’ve been “tagged” on a photo or where you can “tag” your friends. He claims must of his buds, especially the girls, have digital cameras or phonecams and they shoot photos of each other doing pretty near everything, post it, and tag it. “Tag me” is a very popular phrase.
This no doubt helps Facebook obtain the title of The Most popular photo uploading site on the Web.
Ellaborated here:
http://lalunablanca.wordpress.com/2007/12/23/senior-teens/
Thanks for the indepth interview Dave! Quite interesting!
My daughter is 18 & she enjoys the video functionality of her phone more than the camera part. And she an avid texter.
Every great insight on the future that I have ever had has been from talking to someone under the age of 16. It’s amazing how much they can teach us about the future. Thanks for sharing, Connie!
Connie,
It will be interesting to see if your “take away” comes true. With technology moving so fast, I wonder if the next generation of teens will be engaged in what today we call social media, or will all of us, including your 18-year-old, be learning and talking about new communications tools that we can’t begin to imagine today.
Jon Ray & Lewis,
Teens are going to give us direction. And many are already contributing to the new media revolution. It’s an exciting time!
[…] Teens Using Social Media Connie Bensen: My Conversations […]
[…] 31, 2007, 11:47 am Filed under: Emergent | Tags: Pew report, social media, teens Just found this interesting piece, courtesy of Gavin Richardson. I’m going to read the Pew Report itself, but wanted to get […]