Blogging among teens and young adults

While blogging among adults as a whole has remained steady, the
prevalence of blogging within specific age groups has changed
dramatically in recent years. Specifically, a sharp decline in blogging
by young adults has been tempered by a corresponding increase in
blogging among older adults.

• In December 2007, 24% of online 18-29 year olds
  reported blogging, compared with 7% of those thirty and older.
• By 2009, just 15% of internet users ages 18-29
  maintain a blog—a nine percentage point drop in two years. However, 11%
  of internet users ages thirty and older now maintain a personal blog.

Both teen and adult use of social networking sites has risen
significantly, yet there are shifts and some drops in the proportion of
teens using several social networking site features.

• 73% of wired 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.
• As the teen social networking population has increased, the
  popularity of some sites’ features has shifted. Compared with SNS
  activity in February 2008, a smaller proportion of teens in mid-2009
  were sending daily messages to friends via SNS, or sending bulletins,
  group messages or private messages on the sites.   
• 47% of online adults use social networking sites, up from 37%
  in November 2008.
• Young adults act much like teens in their tendency to use
  these sites. Fully 72% of online 18-29 year olds use social networking
  websites, nearly identical to the rate among teens, and significantly
  higher than the 40% of internet users ages 30 and up who use these
  sites.
• 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.¹
• 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 in large numbers. While teens are
bigger users of almost all other online applications, Twitter is an
exception.

• 8% of internet users ages 12-17 use Twitter.²
  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.
• Older teens are more likely to use Twitter than their younger
  counterparts; 10% of online teens ages 14-17 do so, compared with 5% of
  those ages 12-13.
• High school age girls are particularly likely to use Twitter.
  Thirteen percent of online girls ages 14-17 use Twitter, compared with
  7% of boys that age.
• Using different wording, we find that 19% of adult internet
  users use Twitter or similar services to post short status updates and
  view the updates of others online.
• 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.

Wireless internet use rates are especially high among young
adults, and the laptop has replaced the desktop as the computer of
choice among those under thirty.

• 81% of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 are
  wireless internet users. By comparison, 63% of 30-49 year olds and 34%
  of those ages 50 and up access the internet wirelessly.
• Roughly half of 18-29 year olds have accessed the internet
  wirelessly on a laptop (55%) or on a cell phone (55%), and about one
  quarter of 18-29 year-olds (28%) have accessed the internet wirelessly
  on another device such as an e-book reader or gaming device.
• The impact of the mobile web can be seen in young adults’
  computer choices. Two-thirds of 18-29 year olds (66%) own a laptop or
  netbook, while 53% own a desktop computer. Young adults are the only age
  cohort for which laptop computers are more popular than desktops.
• African Americans adults are the most active
  users of the mobile web, and their use is growing at a faster pace than
  mobile internet use among white or Hispanic adults.

Cell phone ownership is nearly ubiquitous among teens and young
adults, and much of the growth in teen cell phone ownership has been
driven by adoption among the youngest teens.

• Three-quarters (75%) of teens and 93% of adults
  ages 18-29 now have a cell phone.
• In the past five years, cell phone ownership has
  become mainstream among even the youngest teens. Fully 58% of 12-year
  olds now own a cell phone, up from just 18% of such teens as recently as
  2004.

Internet use is near-ubiquitous among teens
and young adults. In the last decade, the young adult internet
population has remained the most likely to go online.

• 93% of teens ages 12-17 go online, as do 93% of
  young adults ages 18-29. One quarter (74%) of all adults ages 18 and
  older go online.
• Over the past ten years, teens and young adults
  have been consistently the two groups most likely to go online, even as
  the internet population has grown and even with documented larger
  increases in certain age cohorts (e.g. adults 65 and older).

Our survey of teens also tracked some core internet activities by
those ages 12-17 and found:

• 62% of online teens get news about current
  events and politics online.
• 48% of wired teens have bought things online like books,
  clothing or music, up from 31% who had done so in 2000 when we first
  asked about this.
• 31% of online teens get health, dieting or
  physical fitness information from the internet. And 17% of online teens
  report they use the internet to gather information about health topics
  that are hard to discuss with others such as drug use and sexual health
  topics.