What are your teens doing online?

Pew Internet and American Life Project just released a new report called Teens and Social Media on what teens are doing online. According to the report, “content creation by teenagers continues to grow, with 64% of online teenagers ages 12 to 17 engaging in at least one type of content creation, up from 57% of online teens in 2004″. Creating blogs, uploading videos and photos and of course commenting on others’ creations is becoming a way of life for our kids. “The survey found that content creation is not just about sharing creative output; it is also about participating in conversations fueled by that content.” Not surprisingly, there are more girls than boys involved in this kind of communication. Also, more and more, teens are moving away from email and are communicating through other means, including MySpace. If you have teens and have the time, check out the report. It’s always good to educate ourselves on the sort of things our kids are doing!

 

Pew Internet and Hobbies

Have you heard of the Pew Internet and American Life Project? According to their website, “The Pew Internet & American Life Project produces reports that explore the impact of the internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life. The Project aims to be an authoritative source on the evolution of the internet through collection of data and analysis of real-world developments as they affect the virtual world.”

This week they released a report showing that “fully 83% of online Americans say they have used the internet to seek information about their hobbies and 29% do so on a typical day.” Looking for information about hobbies is among the most popular online activities, along with shopping, surfing the web for fun, and getting news.

After thinking about this a little, I realized that I use the Internet on a regular basis to get information about my hobbies. I have looked for crochet patterns for a particular project, found earring and necklace patterns for beading projects and done major research on my family genealogy…all without leaving home!

How my life has changed over the last 10 years or so… all because of the Internet!!! If you are reading this, you can probably relate! One of my jobs here at the library is teaching computer classes and I love to introduce the internet to newcomers! Newbies are always amazed at what they can do! Whether it is the weather, directions or information about a hobby…they are fascinated.