Blogging is for Adults, Social Networking More Attractive to Kids

A recent Pew (News - Alert) study found that blogging is 'slowly becoming the domain of adults,' as teens are gravitating towards the more immediate social networks.

And MySpace is more for kids, Facebook (News - Alert) for adults.

The study, conducted by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, 'showed a decline in the number of teens who say they blog,' according to industry observer Mark Hachman: 'Just 52 percent comment on their friends' blogs, versus 76 percent three years ago.'

Agence France-Presse said that the report 'found that just 14 percent of teenagers said they blogged in 2009, down from 28 percent in 2006.'

It's not that more adults are blogging, it's that the kids are leaving. About 10 percent of adults maintain a blog, the survey found, which is as many as were doing it in 2005. So they comprise a larger share of bloggers by attrition -- you know, you graduate from high school, have to stop doing MySpace (News - Alert), start paying taxes, living on your own, blogging…

And much to nobody's surprise, 'social networking is on the rise. As of September 2009, 73 percent of online American teens ages 12 to 17 used an online social network website, a statistic that has continued to climb upwards from 55 percent in November 2006 and 65 percent in February 2008, the survey found. Older teens generally frequented the sites more.'

In a completely non-shocking finding, '93 percent of teens surveyed went online, 63 percent on a daily basis,' according to Hachman: 'Only 74 percent of adults go online, based on a separate December study that also included Spanish-speaking Latinos, a group with a disproportionately lower incidence of online use.'

But this is surprising to us: 'The study showed a small dip, about five percent, in both the number of households with Internet service of some form and those with home broadband. Pew did not explain the drop, which peaked in April 2009.'

Any bored social historians out there want to come up with an answer to that one?

And maybe the kids know something the rest of us don't. AFP says that according to the study, 'only eight percent of Internet users ages 12 to 17 said they used Twitter, but nearly two thirds used mobile phone text messages to communicate.'