Are electronic forms of communication replacing face to face communication for teenagers?
• In a large scale survey of 18,000 young people conducted for MTV and Microsoft 53% of teenagers said they preferred face-to-face contact with their friends. • The report writers concluded that technology itself is not interesting for teenagers; all it is doing is giving them an alternative method to do the things they already enjoyed doing. • When asked what they enjoy doing the top answers were listening to music, watching TV or DVD’s and hanging out with friends, which is just the same as the favourite activities from 20 years ago. The difference is that now the listening to music may be done via a PC or MP3 player and watching TV may again be on a PC or via a digital TV “catch up tv” service. • 58% of the young people surveyed said that they use online social networks weekly and they normally talk to existing friends when they are online. The use of this kind of technology peaks in the mid teen years when young people have less freedom than older teens to get out and about to meet
