The Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that 93 per cent of teens in the US use the internet and more of them than ever are treating it as a venue for social interaction – a place where they can share creations, tell stories and interact with others. Sixty-four per cent of online teens ages 12-17 have participated in one or more among a wide range of content-creating activities on the internet, up from 57 per cent of online teens in a similar survey at the end of 2004.

Girls continue to dominate most elements of content creation. Some 35 per cent of all teen girls blog, compared with 20 per cent of online boys, and 54 per cent of wired girls post photos online compared with 40 per cent of online boys. Male teens, however, do dominate one area – posting of video content online. Online boys are nearly twice as likely as online girls (19 per cent vs. 10 per cent) to have posted a video online where others could see it.

The survey found that content creation is not just about sharing creative output; it is also about participating in conversations fueled by that content. Nearly half (47 per cent) of online teens have posted photos where others can see them, and 89 per cent of those teens who post photos say that people comment on the images at least "some of the time."

However, many teen content creators do not simply plaster their creative endeavors on the web for anyone to view; many teens limit access to content that they share.

A subset of teens are super-communicators – teens who have a host of technology options for dealing with family and friends, including traditional landline phones, cell phones, texting, social network sites, instant messaging and email. They represent about 28 per cent of the entire teen population and they are more likely to be older girls.

Among the latest survey findings:

• 39 per cent of online teens share their own artistic creations online, such as artwork, photos, stories, or videos, up from 33 per cent in 2004
• 33 per cent create or work on web pages or blogs for others, including those for groups they belong to, friends, or school assignments, basically unchanged from 2004 (32 per cent)
• 28 per cent have created their own online journal or blog, up from 19 per cent in 2004
• 27 per cent maintain their own personal webpage, up from 22 per cent in 2004
• 26 per cent remix content they find online into their own creations, up from 19 per cent in 2004

The percentage of those ages 12-17 who said "yes" to at least one of those five content-creation activities is 64 per cent of online teens, or 59 per cent of all teens.

In addition to those core elements of content creation, 55 per cent of online teens ages 12-17 have created a profile on a social networking site such as Facebook or MySpace; 47 per cent of online teens have uploaded photos where others can see them, though many restrict access to the photos in some way; and 14 per cent of online teens have posted videos online. The current survey marks the first time questions about video posting and sharing were asked.

Source: PewResearch