Teens (and 18-29 year olds) are the largest users of the Internet. Now consider why teens are accessing the Internet. Yes they are accessing the Internet to update their various social media platforms and watch vidoes on YouTube, but they are also accessing the Internet for school related needs. More and more classes have an online component, so students are going to be accessing the net. I know I had my students researching and completing assignments online as well as many of my fellow teachers. Many college students are taking courses online, so they too are accessing the Internet for educational purposes.
What are they using to access the net? Desktops or laptop computers, surprising no? Most teens do not own a cell phone with even less having a smartphone. This surprised me as I felt like all of my 8th graders had a cell phone with very few being "dumbphones." According to the Pew researcehrs, 87% of older teens from high income families are the ones with cell phones. I taught in a low income district, so this stat is a bit perplexing to me. However my microcosm does not represent the whole of the U.S., so that is something to keep in mind when using your personal experience to debunk stats. Of the students who have cell phones, most teens use them for texting or talking, with girls being in the lead.
One very surprising stat was just 6% of teens like to use geolocation services to check-in and connect with friends. It seems that our teens have more common sense than we give them credit for when it comes to online safety.
Social media is extremely popular with teens, with Facebook being king. Twitter does not come close to catching up to Facebook, and Instagram is even less popular. It might also surprise you that teens are not the only ones whose lives revolve around social networking sites (SNS). Adults enjoy trolling Facebook just as much as teens. Parents are evening friending their children on SNS. While on SNS, most teens are chatting with friends via chat features. Commenting on posts and updating status are a close second and third in popularity. Getting back to privacy, 62% of teens use privacy settings on SNS. Teens are also conscious of what the post and do not post on SNS.
When it comes how teens perceive people to behave on the Internet, they are a bit inconsistent. The majority of teens said people are mostly kind on the Internet, but the words they used to describe were contrary to this statement. Terms such as rude, fake, mean, and different were some of the most popular. Perhaps their infrequent negative experiences have impacted them more than they realize, or perhaps they are not being as honest with themselves as they think. When asked how people should act, respectful was the word most teens chose.
This report states that teens turn to parents when it comes to online safety, but in another report by Pew, teens were more likely to turn to each other. This difference could be a result of a broader/narrower search for the two surveys, or it could be a result of time.
What does all of this mean for the library? We have got to be online! We need to tear down our physical barriers and be everywhere our students our. This also means that we have to have technology available to our students so that these digital natives become productive digital citizens who use the Internet in more ways than watching videos on YouTube. We have to teach our students how to research, how to cite their sources, and how to evaluate sources for credibility. Just because teens have been around digital technology all of theirs, does not mean they know how to properly use it.
Brittany
Brittany
Teens 2012: Truth, Trends, and Myths About Teen Online Behavior from Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project
Purcell, K. (2012, July 11). Teens 2012: Truth, Trends, and Myths About Teen Online Behavior. Retrieved December 3, 2014, from http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/07/11/teens-2012-truth-trends-and-myths-about-teen-online-behavior/
Mining PEW Progress: 136/150
I also felt that all teens had cell phones until I read the results of this survey. Interesting information.
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