Surprise Surprise: Survey Shows Teens Use Social Networks

A new survey release today from the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that more than half (55%) of all online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites.

Survey Findings

• 55% of online teens have created a personal profile online, and 55% have used social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook.
• 66% of teens who have created a profile say that their profile is not visible to all internet users. They limit access to their profiles.
• 48% of teens visit social networking websites daily or more often; 26% visit once a day, 22% visit several times a day.
• Older girls ages 15-17 are more likely to have used social networking sites and created online profiles; 70% of older girls have used an online social network compared with 54% of older boys, and 70% of older girls have created an online profile, while only 57% of older boys have done so.

Teens say social networking sites help them manage their friendships

• 91% of all social networking teens say they use the sites to stay in touch with friends they see frequently, while 82% use the sites to stay in touch with friends they rarely see in person.
• 72% of all social networking teens use the sites to make plans with friends; 49% use the sites to make new friends.
• Older boys who use social networking sites (ages 15-17) are more likely than girls of the same age to say that they use social networking sites to make new friends (60% vs. 46%).
• Just 17% of all social networking teens say they use the sites to flirt.
• Older boys who use social networking sites are more than twice as likely as older girls to say they use the sites to flirt; 29% report this compared with just 13% of older girls.

If you delve a little further into the survey results a couple of interesting data points stand out.

• The survey includes 12 and 13 year-olds who cannot legally create a profile on MySpace until they are 13. Thus the 55% of all youths is actually understated.
• The demographic numbers where the same across racial and economic lines indicating how important social networks have become in the lives of teens.
• Fully 85% of teens who have created an online profile say the profile they use or update most often is on MySpace, while 7% update a profile on Facebook. Another 1% tend to a primary profile on Xanga. Other sites mentioned were Yahoo, Piczo, Gaiaonline and Tagged.com.

You can also view a PDF of the report here.