Internet Use: Post for MK 299 class

The purpose of this blog is not only to get people to visit it and post their comments as well as mine, but it’s a project for my Internet Marketing class. And as a result of this being a project, I have to make a few posts about in-class discussions and assignments. So for this post, it’s going to be related to a topic which I will be teaching, along with my three other groups members, next week in class—Valentine’s Day; Internet Use.

Today’s topic on Internet Use has to deal with teens and how often they use the internet and what they are using it for. The results surprised me a little bit, but then again they didn’t because today’s teens thrive for the internet. My generation is growing with the internet—as we are maturing so is the web, whereas the generations behind me are growing up with it. Meaning, it’s been a hot thing since they were babies. For my generation, the internet got hot around middle school.

Just a few facts from PewResearch Center: 93% of teens are using the internet, using for social interactions; 35% of all teen girls blog and 20% of boys blog; boys post almost nearly twice as many videos than girls at 19% and girls at 10%; 27% of teens maintain their own personal webpage; 28% have created their own online journal or blog; and 55% of teens ages 12-17 have created a profile on some kind of social network, such as Facebook or MySpace.

When I read these statistics, I thought it was interesting to learn how many teens have their own blogs and/ or journals online. Personally, I never even visited a blog before this class, nonetheless create my own. And it’s also no surprise that most of the videos posted online, whether it’s through YouTube or some other website, are from teen boys. Usually, they’re the ones doing the crazy stunts for fun or for attention.

To add to the video comment, this website—PewResearch, noted that teens are posting blogs and videos and journals for attention and to obtain conversations with new and old friends. Again, not a big surprise. Teens today, in my personal opinion, don’t meet too many people outside of school by just meeting them on the street or bumping into them at the store. Instead, they’re meeting them on the internet through friends of friends or just by joining a chat room or, like the article says, through blogs and other posts.

Feel free to read more about these facts of PewResearch’s website, at PewResearch Center Publications

It’ll be interesting to find out more facts about teens and their use of the internet, as well as other uses of the internet by the rest of the population. Keep checking back for more posts related to this Internet Use topic.

Mallory*