The Pew Internet Project, a non-partisan, non-profit research centre that examines the social impact of the internet, has recently published the results of a survey on the habits of American teens regarding social networking sites
The study reveals that 55% of all online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites” and 55% have already created online profiles. Older girls (aged 15-17) are more likely to use these sites
Other interesting numbers and facts from the survey:- despite having created their online profiles, 66% has only made it visible to a selected group of people;- 48% of the interviewed visit the social networking sites at least once a day;- boys are more likely to use social networking sites to make new friends (60% vs 46%);- the vast majority of teens (91%) use these sites to stay in touch with friends they see frequently and 82% use them to stay in touch with friends they rarely see in person;- 85% uses their MySpace profile the most, while only 7% prefers Facebook. Other sites mentioned include Xanga (1%), Yahoo, Piczo, Gaiaonline and Tagged.com;- only a very small number of teens uses these sites without creating their own profile;- boys prefer MySpace, girls prefer Facebook. The main reason seems associated with the fact that Facebook encourages a direct connection between the online persona and the real person and it has been, until recently, a community mostly constituted by “validated” members;- teens believe “a social network profile is more engaging if it changes frequently”;- teens who mostly use internet at home are more likely to visit social networking sites and create their own profiles;- household income and race / ethnicity do not seem to have an impact on behaviour;- the most popular way of communicating by way of a social networking site is to post a message to a friend’s page (84%), closely followed by sending private messages (82%) and posting comments to a friend’s blog
Some of the thoughts that came to mind when I was reading the results of the survey are:1. Are these sites improving or damaging teens social skills
2. Why are “real world” behaviours so closely replicated online (for instance, girls being more careful and private)? How long will it take for these to change? And once it changes online, will it also, as a consequence, change in the “real world”? Could this be an indicator of the speed of cultural change within online communities (i.e. communities where most of the activity happens online) in an organizational context?
3. Organisations will have to cater for this new way of “being” if they are to win over and retain the brightest graduates – how are they getting ready
4. Teens seemed to have quickly grasped the importance of an online profile and many are already mastering the art of managing it successfully – is there a need for profile management to be taught at schools to give teens equal opportunities
5. What are these sites doing so well to motivate members to create and maintain their profiles that organisations are doing so wrongly (as almost every organisation suffers from out-dated, abandoned or empty yellow pages systems)? How can organisations learn from these sites? How can organisations pass on to their staff the public relations / profile management skills that seem to become so important
6. What is the functionality that makes these sites so inviting? Would the same functionality work equally well in an organisational scenario
Survey summary available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/198/report_display.asp
Social Networking Websites and Teens: and the survey says…
by Ana Neves2 Responses to Social Networking Websites and Teens: and the survey says…
smarter, simpler, social
I think one of the things, we definilty don’t need to do , is think about implementing profile management, into any of our school curriculums. Radical yes, but not necessarily why i’m against it. Its impractical at best.. Social Networking sites, are not safe, and teens should not be encouraged to use it. If they were, they’d never be able to be truthful and be safe from predetors and other unsavory characters, and can we really justify teaching teens the finer art of deception. Teens are about as fickle as they come, last years hot thing was Friendstar, now its Myspace, which is quickly being replaced by Facebook, it just seems to me that its the sort of thing, that will pewter out on its own, or move into vastly different areas in the shortest space of time, education is never really able to keep up with technology.
I do think organisations will have to address these issues, and pretty soon. Of course, it’s not simply a matter of offering site-building/blogging software inside the firewall. In the case of many (most?) organisations, as soon as a new graduate gets to smell the corporate political climate – perhaps as a result of eyebrow semaphore from their boss about something they wrote on their blog about the latest HR initiative – they won’t bother posting any more. During the past few years it’s been possible to retain staff notwithstanding the contrast between Internet openness and corporate guardedness, but for how much longer? Graduates may start voting with their feet, and choosing the companies that can provide the right culture for open opinion-sharing.