Trumblog

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project came out with a report yesterday on Social Media and Young Adults and immediately I began to see articles and Tweets about how Teens don’t blog or use Twitter. As the father of a teen I can tell you that if there is one thing that is true of this age group it is that there is no one thing true about all of them (that goes for every other age group as well).  Also, as someone who has fought regularly about the online activity of Americans over 60, I can tell you that headlines from a quick reading of Pew data are often simplistic and give a false sense of understanding.  If you really dig into the Pew Research data and compare it against other studies about American blogging and twittering a different analysis can be found which is that there is a large, thriving teen blog and twitter community.

First, let’s look at the data from Pew. Their survey showed that 73% of 12-17 year olds are avid social networkers. It also showed that only 14% of teens blog (down from 28% two years ago) and just 8% of teens tweet. I don’t dispute any of that data and nor should you.  Social networks are clearly an enormous part of a teen’s online activity.  Teen blogging is down and they communicate via text much more than with Twitter. What I do have issue with is the analysis of what the Pew Research data means.

Now let’s put this in perspective.  How many adults blog?  Pew surveys since 2005 have consistently shown that “roughly one in ten online adults maintain a personal online journal or blog.”  In other words teens are more likely to blog than adults.  How about Twitter?  The data is a little different there.  Back in October Pew stated in their report Twitter and Status Updating, Fall 2009 that “19% of internet users now say they use Twitter.”  Thus teens are only 5% less likely to tweet than the population at large.

How about the raw numbers?  According to the U.S. Census Bureau data from 2008 there are approximately 32,331,433 Americans between the ages of 12 and 17 (US Census data is actually for people between 10 and 19, this data is based on averaging the population of each age and then determining the total between 12 and 18). Using Pew’s data that 93% of teens are online that gives us an online teen population of 30,068,233. Using Pew’s data on teen bloggers and twitterers then we can determine that there are approximately 4,209,553 teen bloggers and 2,405,459 twittering teens.  Those are numbers that are large enough not to be ignored.

So teens blog and tweet in similar percentages to the American online population in general and that adds up to some pretty significant numbers.  If you believe the buzz that teens don’t blog or tweet then you leave that space and that market of over 4 million teens to those of us who crunch a few numbers and figure out what is really going on with teens, blogging and Twitter.  You have been warned.

Photo by NJLA: New Jersey Library Association

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