As if we all needed it, further valuable evidence from the Pew Internet and American Life study showing a continuing increase in social media use by young online Americans. Among the top-level findings:

  • 64% of online teenagers ages 12 to 17 engaged in at least one type of content creation, up from 57% in 2004
  • 35% of all teen girls blog, compared with 20% of online boys
  • 54% of wired girls post photos online compared with 40% of online boys
  • Interestingly, online teen boys are nearly twice as likely as online girls (19% vs. 10%) to have posted a video online somewhere where someone else could see it
    1. And, finally, another finding of interest, the notion of “super communicators”,

      There is a subset of teens who are super-communicators – teens who have a host of technology options for dealing with family and friends, including traditional landline phones, cell phones, texting, social network sites, instant messaging, and email. They represent about 28% of the entire teen population and they are more likely to be older girls.

    Of course this has all kinds of implications for the workplace. I had a really interesting conversation with a potential hire today about the fact that he feels like he’s been actively losing young, intelligent staffers because his current workplace doesn’t recognize that they work differently. This is a topic I’ve been thinking about a lot since September, when I had a really interesting conversation with Josh Greenbaum at the Office 2.0 conference. There’s a post brewing on that one, so stay tuned.

    Here’s a link to the complete Pew study, called Family, Friends & Community: Teens and Social Media

    1 Comment

    1. As the mother of a “supercommunicator” teen girl (and a teen boy, to a lesser extent) I can relate to these findings. Interestingly, my daughter, 15, got busted at school for going on Facebook during class computer lab time. She was shocked by the reprimand; says she was just doing the “research” requested by the teacher.

      Misunderstood study/work habits of the youth? … or abuse of school time for online gossiping with peers? Kinda depends on what side of 20 you’re sitting on, I guess.

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