THE Pew Internet & American Life Project has released results of a survey of how online American teens use social networking sites.
The research was conducted by telephone from October 23 through November 19, 2006 among a national sample of 935 youths ages 12 to 17, according to a Pew news release.
The survey found that 55% of online teens have created a personal profile online. Most of them use social networking site MySpace.
Teens who use social networking sites use them intensely, with 80% saying they visit at least weekly.
- 48% said they visit social networking websites daily or more often;
- 26% said once per day;
- 22% said several times per day;
- 17% said three to five days per week;
- 15% said one to two days a week; and
- 20% said every few weeks or less often.
Communication preferences
Social networking sites give users a variety of ways to communicate. They can send private messages to another user or they can use more public methods such as posting messages to a friend’s page or wall, sending a group message to their network, commenting on a friend’s blog, or by giving e-props icons to a friend’s page.
The list below shows the most common ways teens communicate with people both in and out of their personal network:
84% post messages to a friend’s page or wall
82% send private messages to a friend within the social networking system
76% leave comments on a friend’s blog
61% send a bulletin or group message to all of your friends
33% Wink, poke, give “e-props” or kudos to your friends
Of course, what people say they do and what they actually do can be two different things.
Pam Agnew, ABC is a director of IR Web Reporting International Inc. and an award-winning communicator. She has more than 20 years of corporate and agency experience in investor, crisis, corporate, media, stakeholder and sustainability communications on four continents for leading global companies as well as stock exchanges, securities regulators and large institutional investors.
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