Online Teens Embrace Social Networking

Over at Techcraunch we blogged about teen social networking site Piczo earlier. Following on from that we note that according to a report released today by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, more that half of American teens between 12 – 17 years of age use social networking websites.

The report, which is titled Social Networking Websites and Teens: An Overview and can be found here, notes that socnet sites have rocketed from a niche activity into a phenomenon that engages tens of millions of Internet users.

There is no surprise in the finding that MySpace dominates the social networking world with some 85% of teens who have created an online profile saying they use or update most often on this site. 

An interesting point is that there is a preference amongst boys to use MySpace and amongst girls to use Facebook. It would seem that boys prefer the anything goes free flowing nature of MySpace, which has loose age restrictions and on which users can create whatever type of profile and network they choose.

While Facebook has a more closed, restrictive system, for example users are encouraged to register with their real name and must be verified by other high school students to be allowed to register as part of that school’s community.

It would seem the older hunter/gatherer mentality is alive and well amongst US teens.