Teen Topix Teens & Internet, Spring 2008 | OTX and Intelligence Group
New Research from OTX and Intelligence Group Looks at Teens’ Online Behavior. We know that teens are spending more time on the Internet, but what are they doing there? Are they spending money and paying attention to advertising? Are they continuing to do the same things every year or are some online activities becoming more popular than others? OTX and their Teen Topix Partners, eCrush and Intelligence Group, interviewed 751 teens 13-17 that use the Internet more than one hour a week to find out what’s happening online - what’s hot and what’s not – what will be the new trends? This report includes a 20-page Executive Summary with charts, plus two, 302-page files containing data tables.
The study found that teens are spending an average of 11.5 hours per week online, doing everything from instant messaging and visiting social networking sites to shopping and listening to music, but dispels myths that this group wants to do everything online. When asked a series of “would you rather” questions, teens chose reality over virtual reality in many aspects of their lives. Given the choice, teens prefer real friends (91%) to online friends (9%), date someone from school (87%) over someone from the Internet (13%), and shop in a store (82%) to shop online (18%). Interestingly however, teens would rather get their locker vandalized (63%) than their homepage (37%), and IM a friend (54%) over calling (46%).
“Teens are not a ‘one size fits all’ market and the Teen Topix reports show this group to be complex, sophisticated consumers and media users, just as we all are,” says Jane Buckingham, President, The Intelligence Group. The study did find that 24% of teens are spending more than 15 hours a week online and when all teens were asked how frequently they do typical online activities, instant messaging came up as the most frequent activity, followed by visiting social networking sites, email, searching, and visiting virtual community sites.
“Many of these online activities take place simultaneously; for example, teens are IM-ing and searching the web at the same time,” says Bruce Friend, President Media and Entertainment Insights for OTX. “Teens like the rest of us live in a world of increasing media and technology options, and our Longitudinal Media Experience (LMX) study confirms that teenagers are often heavy simultaneous media users.”
The study also found that 58% of teens have made a purchase online. On average teens who make purchases online are spending $46 per month, and 26% of teens are spending $50 or more. Clothes and music are the two most popular online purchases, followed by books, electronics and DVDs. The bedroom (36%) and living room (24%) are the places teens are most likely to have their primary computer. Teens with their primary computer in their bedrooms are more likely to be heavy internet users (15+ hours per week) and spend money online.
Teens are however aware of the risks associated with online life: 78% of teens are concerned about computer viruses while online, followed by identity theft (67%), unauthorized access to personal information (65%), Scams (60%), and Spam (60%).
The study also confirms the popularity of social networking sites, with 95% of teens saying they have belonged to a social networking site at some point. The average teen has signed up for over four social networking sites and currently belongs to two. Teens report learning about music, other websites, movies, TV shows, and new trends from social networking sites. Teens are receptive to advertising on these sites, where the majority of teens learn about financial services (63%) movies in theaters (59%), mobile services and accessories (58%), travel (57%) and other websites (53%) from ads on these sites.
