Mr. MacKenty posted an article that talked about “What does technology mean to the modern child?”. He surmised that teens use technology for information, entertainment and communication. Which seems to be what cell phones are very good at – getting movie times, playing games and communicating (SMS, MMM and that old style thing “calling”). A month ago, in July the PEW/Internet American Life Project released a paper that supports this, noting that the number of “connected” teens has increased as they do more things online than before.
An interesting finding was that older girls are more information and communication hungry than anyone else: from pV
They are more likely to use email, text messaging, search for information about prospective schools, seek health and religious information, and visit entertainment-related websites.
Page 10 of the same paper shows that the cell phone is next to the desktop computer as the king of the ring. Perhaps because of the price and the portability/feature set.
Cell phones are also a widely-used communication device for teenagers. Close to half of the teenagers we surveyed, 45%, say they have a cell phone. This percentage is less than the 68% of adults who have a cell phone,12 but it still represents a significant proportion of teens. Of the roughly 11 million teenagers with a cell phone, only 10% use it to
connect to the internet.
For many teens with a cell phone, the use of that phone is a central method of communication in daily life. Forty-five percent of teens with cell phones say they spend more time talking with their friends on their cell phone than on a regular landline phone. Nevertheless, slightly more of these cell-phone-owning teens (53%) report using a landline phone more than their cell.
There are quite a few other interesting bit there – on IM, texting and identity (it seems that having multiple personas is a fact for many teens, and not to slip down into a previous argument over personas – these are likely all self chosen/created, not forced as a result of corporate merger).
Reading though the paper, it seems that SES and age are major factors in technology use, as older more affluent teens have more technology than younger or less affluent individuals.
PS at 15:23 I have received my 1000th hit 🙂 – just ahead of my prediction.
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