They use the Internet just about every day, and you hear “instant message” pings every time you walk past the computer.
They are likely to share links, photos, music and video files by instant message. Between IMs, they play games online.
Nearly half have cell phones to keep in touch with home and friends. They text message their friends. They think e-mail is something used to talk to “old people.”
Welcome to the technology-enhanced world of the typical American teen. A survey released Wednesday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that nearly nine in 10 teens (87 percent) are Internet users. That’s 21 million teens ages 12 to 17, up from 73 percent five years ago. By comparison, only about 66 percent of adults use the Internet. A whopping 84 percent of teens reported owning at least one communication device, either a desktop or laptop computer, a cell phone or a personal digital assistant.
‘I use it way too much’
Despite all their access to technology, and as much as they blab on cell phones with their friends, the survey also found teens are still most likely to curl up with the good old land line phone at home. And their main mode of communicating with friends is still face-to-face socializing outside of school.
Casey Teague, 14, of Sandwich, carried two cell phones at Navy Pier on Wednesday: his own and his girlfriend’s.
“I use my cell phone to talk to my friends,” he said, “and her.” He estimates he spends 30 minutes to three hours a day on the cell phone. He spent two hours online Tuesday night, switching back and forth between instant messages and games, and said that’s typical.
His 16-year-old sister, Cassie, had her cell phone handy, too.
“I use it way too much,” she said. “I don’t use the home phone.”
“I’ve got my own cell phone, and I’m on it two or three hours a day,” said 12-year-old Omarah Scott of Chicago. “I talk to my friends, mostly about our plans.”
The survey found girls’ use of text messaging steadily increases by age from 12 to 17. It showed a surge in the size of the wired teen population at seventh grade.
The “Teens and Technology” survey also revealed a cultural and economic divide in kids’ access to and use of technology. Among white teens, 87 percent said they go online, compared with 89 percent of Hispanic youth and 77 percent of African-American teens.
Nearly all teens in households earning more than $75,000 a year were online, most with high-speed connections. However, teens who do not go online were clearly defined by lower levels of income and limited access to technology.
About 3 million kids — 13 percent of U.S. teens — do not use the Internet. About half (47 percent) of those who don’t go online say they have been online before but dropped off. They were disproportionately likely to be African-American, the study found.
Bridging generation gap
The survey of 1,100 teens and their parents showed more teens using the Internet to play games, buy things, get news and seek health information than in the first “Teens and Technology” study in 2000. Emerging was a trend of older girls as “power communicators and information seekers.”
Girls 15 to 17 are more likely to use e-mail and text messaging, search for data about prospective schools, seek health and religious information and visit entertainment Web sites. And teens could help bridge the generation gap.
“My grandmother barely knows how to turn on the computer, and they didn’t have cell phones in her day,” said Dominique Daily, 14, who’ll be a freshman at Julian High School. “I have to teach her everything.”
BY LESLIE BALDACCI, Chicago Sun-Times Staff Reporter
www.suntimes.com
