"The Pew Internet & American Life Project has just released new research on teens and technology. Not surprisingly they find that teens are leading the transition to a fully wired and mobile lifestyle in America. What is surprising is the rapid acceptance of technology across all teen demographics."
Some findings by Pew research:
87% of teens use the internet.
Even in households with under $30,000 annual income, 73% of teens use the internet.
In households earning over $75,000 a year, 93% of teens are online.
51% of teens say the go online every day.
51% of online teens live in a home with high-speed access.
81% of teen internet users play games online.
76% get news online.
84% of all teenagers own at least one of the following: computer, cell phone, PDA.
83% of all teenagers surveyed reported that "most" of the people they know use the internet.
75% of online teens use instant messenger.
32% of ALL teens use instant messenger EVERY day.
Teens in focus groups reported that they viewed email as something you use to talk to "old people" (parents, teachers), while instant messenger was the preferred medium for casual conversation with friends.
The complete report entitled "Teens and Technology", dated July 27, 2005 is available at no cost from Pew Internet.
Interesting.
When I was teaching at-risk kids, we had them use the internet ever day... We were in a school, so we had high-speed access... But, I'd say 90% of our kids were from $20k or less households.
Posted by: timsamoff | August 05, 2005 at 03:39 PM
And I thought that email was still high-tech! Looks like I'm already in my prime...or "old" according to the kiddos :)
Posted by: corrine | August 05, 2005 at 06:18 PM
Corrine, I know... I had the same thought, in fact it has popped into my mind several times over the last 24 hours... "I do e-mail and avoid IM, I'm old"
Posted by: Mike King | August 06, 2005 at 09:37 AM
Even colleges are catching on to this - the instructor's for my on-line classes list not only their office numbers and e-mail addresses - they also list their IM names. When they are "in the classroom" you can get live help via IMing.
Posted by: daniel | August 06, 2005 at 03:13 PM