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| This section presents the raw data from surveys collected to show how it reflects on the subject. A clearer picture of how teens use the social Web has emerged from studies released in the past month from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. More than half (55%) of US 12-to-17-year-olds use social sites, and 48% use them at least daily, according to just-released research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. And echoing the basic message of an academic paper given last week , Pew's findings should ease some concerns: 66% of teens who have created a profile say it's not publicly visible and - Internet News reports - "most teens use the sites to map their offline social networks in an online environment - 91% of all social-networking teens say they use the sites to stay in touch with friends they see frequently (not to meet strangers), while only 49% use the sites to make new friends" (parents and teens should probably work on bringing that number down further, unless the "new friends" are peers and friends of friends). Highlights from Pew Internet & American Life Project. - 66% of teens who have created a profile limit access to it, and the majority of them know the difference between a public and a private profile. - 70% of older girls (15-17) have used a social site vs. 54% of older boys; among 12-to-14-year-olds, more boys (46%) use these sites than girls do (44%). - The most popular form of communicating in social sites is posting messages or comments on friends' pages, profiles, or "walls" (84%); sending private messages to friends in the sites (82%); commenting on a friend's blog (75%); and posting bulletins to all their friends (61%). - 91% of all social-networking teens say they use the sites to stay in touch with friends they see frequently and 82% to stay in touch with friends they rarely see - in person (e.g., those out of state). - 72% use the sites to make plans with friends, 49% to make new friends. - Older boys (15-17) are more likely than older girls to use social sites to make new friends (60% vs. 46%). - "Just 17% of all social networking teens say they use the sites to flirt," Pew says. - Older boys (29%) are more than twice as likely as older girls (13%) to use the sites to flirt. - As for which sites, 85% of teens who have created profiles say MySpace is their main one, 7% Facebook, and 1% Xanga. - 68% of US teens use instant messaging, Internet News cites Pew researcher Amanda Lenhart as saying. Credits to the Pew Internet & American Live Project. |
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