Two surveys from Pew Internet Project reveal a decline in blogging among teens and young adults and a modest rise among adults 30 and older. In addition, the research shows that teens ages 12-17 do not use Twitter in large numbers, though teenage girls show the greatest enthusiasm for the application.
The report is wide-ranging and worth a read, but we’ve picked out the highlights here:
Blogging has declined in popularity among both teens and young adults
14% of online teens now say they blog, down from 28% of teen internet users in 2006. This decline is also reflected in the lower incidence of teen commenting on blogs within social networking websites; 52% of teen social network users report commenting on friends’ blogs, down from the 76% who did so in 2006.
Both teen and adult use of social networking sites has risen significantly
73% of American teens now use social networking websites, a significant increase from previous surveys. Just over half of online teens (55%) used social networking sites in November 2006 and 65% did so in February 2008.
47% of online adults use social networking sites, up from 37% in November 2008. Adults are increasingly fragmenting their social networking experience as a majority of those who use social networking sites – 52% – say they have two or more different profiles. That is up from 42% who had multiple profiles in May 2008.
Facebook is currently the most commonly-used online social network among adults
Among adult profile owners 73% have a profile on Facebook, 48% have a profile on MySpace and 14% have a LinkedIn profile.
The specific sites on which young adults maintain their profiles are different from those used by older adults: Young profile owners are much more likely to maintain a profile on MySpace (66% of young profile owners do so, compared with just 36% of those thirty and older) but less likely to have a profile on the professionally-oriented LinkedIn (7% vs. 19%).
In contrast, adult profile owners under thirty and those thirty and older are equally likely to maintain a profile on Facebook (71% of young profile owners do so, compared with 75% of older profile owners).
Teens are not using Twitter
While teens are bigger users of almost all other online applications, Twitter is an exception. 8% of internet users ages 12-17 use Twitter. This makes Twitter as common among teens as visiting a virtual world, and far less common than sending or receiving text messages as 66% of teens do, or going online for news and political information, done by 62% of online teens.
Young adults lead the way when it comes to using Twitter or status updating. One-third of online 18-29 year olds post or read status updates.
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