Social media — blogging, social networking and creation of digital material — is central to many teenager’s lives. 93% of US teens use the internet and 39% of online teens share their own creations online: Photos, stories, videos and more. This number is up from 33% in 2004.

These numbers are from the report “Teens and Social Media” from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. And the report holds other numbers of interest to many of Pandia’s readers: Educators, marketers, librarians.

Blogging is up, mostly due to the girls

28% of online teens have created their own blog (up from 19% in 2004) and 27% maintain their own web page.

Girls lead the charge in the teen blogosphere: 35% of teenage girls blog, compared with 20% of the boys. Most of the growth in teenage blogging from 2004 to 2007 is attributable to the increased activity of girls.

Real social networking

About 55% of American online teens have profiles on a social network site. But they do more than just maintain their profile: 70% read the blogs of others and 76% have commented on a friend’s blog post or social network item.

While the boys are not the most avid bloggers, they are more likely to upload videos to video sharing sites. Boys are twice as likely to upload videos as girls.

Digital images, both stills and videos, play an important part in teens’ social networking. 89% say that they receive comments on the items they post online. And this practice isn’t limited to images and videos. 76% say they comment on the blog posts of others.

These comments often turn into conversations, making this more than the online exhibitionism that teens are often accused of. This is real social networking where the contributors learn to know each other and learn from each other.

This is emphasized by the fact that few teens who upload photos share them without restrictions. Far more cautious than adults, only 21% of teens say they never restrict access to the images they upload. The number for adults is twice that: 42%.

What does it mean?

What can we learn from these numbers? For one thing, it seems the rate of contribution of content online is set to rise. In 2006 Jakob Nielsen found that in most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action. These numbers certainly don’t hold true for teenagers, who seem to be set to conquer the web as they grow up.

The numbers from Pew also indicate that teens are serious about their online presence, making acquaintances, building relationships and taking care both to contribute and to protect their contributions. Even though much of their online activity is for fun, they don’t take it lightly.

Want to know more about teens online? Have a look at our article about Tomorrow’s web customers.