Teens and Technology - Pew Internet & American Life Project
Teens and Technology - Pew Internet & American Life Project
Teens and Technology - Pew Internet & American Life Project
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
Summary of Findings<br />
Instant messaging has become the digital communication backbone of teens’ daily lives.<br />
About half of instant-messaging teens — or roughly 32% of all teens — use IM every<br />
single day. As the platforms for instant messaging programs spread to cell phones <strong>and</strong><br />
h<strong>and</strong>held devices, teens are starting to take textual communication with them into their<br />
busy <strong>and</strong> increasingly mobile lives. IM is a staple of teens’ daily internet diet <strong>and</strong> is used<br />
for a wide array of tasks — to make plans with friends, talk about homework<br />
assignments, joke around, check in with parents, <strong>and</strong> post “away messages” or notices<br />
about what they are doing when they are away from their computers.<br />
• 75% of online teens — or about two-thirds of all teenagers — use instant messaging,<br />
compared to 42% of online adults.<br />
• 48% of teens who use instant messaging say they exchange IMs at least once every<br />
day.<br />
The l<strong>and</strong>line phone lives on.<br />
While teens have a great appetite for new information technologies, the l<strong>and</strong>line<br />
telephone remains the most dominant communication medium in teens’ everyday life.<br />
Overall, when asked about how they prefer to communicate with friends, just 5% of all<br />
online teens say they most often choose email to communicate with friends. In<br />
comparison, nearly five times as many teens (24%) prefer instant messaging when<br />
talking with friends. Nonetheless, the telephone remains the tool of choice for the<br />
majority of teens:<br />
• 51% of online teens usually choose the l<strong>and</strong>line telephone when they want to talk<br />
with friends.<br />
• 24% said they will most often use instant messaging.<br />
• 12% prefer to call friends on their cell phone.<br />
• 5% use email most often to communicate with friends.<br />
• 3% prefer to use text messages.<br />
<strong>Teens</strong> share more than words over IM.<br />
IM is a multi-channel space of personal expression for teens. They typically converse in<br />
text, but they also share links, photos, music, <strong>and</strong> video over IM.<br />
• 50% of IM-using teens have included a link to an interesting or funny article or<br />
website in an instant message.<br />
• 45% have used IM to send photos or documents.<br />
• 31% have sent music or video files via IM.<br />
<strong>Teens</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Technology</strong> - iii - <strong>Pew</strong> <strong>Internet</strong> & <strong>American</strong> <strong>Life</strong> <strong>Project</strong>