The Pew Internet and American Life Project released a report this month on teen content creators and consumers. The report defines “content creators” as online teens who have created or worked on a blog or webpage, shared original creative content, or remixed content they found online into a new creation. Twenty one million teens (those ages 12-17) use the internet and half of them use the internet daily and another third use it once a week or more. Parents of online teens view the internet and email as a positive addition to their children’s lives and teens are often the ones leading the technology adoption curve in their households.
Social marketers who design programs aimed at this age group need to consider the behavioral patterns of their priority audience as they approach the use of this media. Some of the highlights of the report include:
- Nearly 57% of online teams are Content Creators. About one third share their artwork, photos, stories or videos; 22% have their own personal web sites and 19% have their own web log.
- 19% of online teens have a web log, and 38% read them. Teens are much more likely than adults to blog and they are also more likely to read blogs.
- Older girls age 15-17 are most likely to blog (25%). Teens who go online frequently are more than twice as likely to blog; 27% of daily users have their own blog, compared with 11% of those who go online several times a week, and 10% of those who go online less often.
- Teen bloggers are tech-savvy and heavy internet users. Bloggers are more likely than non-bloggers to engage in everyday online activities such as getting news, using IM or making online purchases, but content creating and sharing activities are the areas where bloggers are far ahead of non-bloggers.
- Half of all online teens download music files and approximately one third also download video.
From a social change and social marketing perspective, teen bloggers share characteristics similar to those of early adopters of other technologies and behaviors and are heavier users of the internet than their non-blogging peers. When thinking about influencing priority audiences through peer and other social networks, it is also important to note that “…for teens, blogs are much more about the maintenance and extension of personal relationships. When teens do read blogs, they mainly read the blogs of people they know. About 62% of blog-reading teens say they only read the blogs of people they know.” Blogging, website hosting and file-sharing, the latter often accomplished through instant messaging (IM) technologies, are three media use behaviors (and channels) of this age group that provide new opportunities to promote health and pro-social behaviors.
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