Blogging declines among teens, young adults

 According to the new survey, Facebook is now the social network of choice among teens and young adults.

(Credit: Screenshot by Dong Ngo/CNET)
 
As social-media sites like Facebook grow in popularity among teenagers and young adults, good ol' blogging has declined sharply over the past three years for this set, a new report shows.

In 2006, 28 percent of teens ages 12 to 17 and young adults ages 18 to 29 were bloggers, according to survey results released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center. By the fall of 2009, however, these numbers dropped to 14 percent of teens and 15 percent of young adults. During the same period, the percentage of online adults over 30 who are blogging rose from 7 percent in 2006 to 11 percent in 2009.

The survey attributed the decline in blogging among younger Internet users to changes in social network use. About three quarters (73 percent) of online teens and an equal number (72 percent) of young adults use social-networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace. As they get older, people seem to use social-networking sites less. The survey shows that only 40 percent of adults ages 30 and older were using social-networking sites in the fall of 2009.

Among major social sites, the new survey results show that Facebook has taken over as the social network of choice among adults ages 18 and older with 73 percent of adult profiles. MySpace is second with 48 percent and LinkedIn follows with 14 percent.

The survey results also note that young adults ages 18 to 29 have embraced mobile gadgets and connectivity with 66 percent of them being laptop users. Some 81 percent of those 18 to 29 go online wirelessly compared to 63 percent of 30- to 49-year-olds, and 34 percent of those ages 50 and older. More than half of young adults have accessed the Internet wirelessly on a laptop (55 percent) or a cell phone (53 percent).

The quantitative results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research International between June 26 and September 24, 2009, among a sample of 800 teens ages 12 to 17 and a parent or guardian.

The survey is part of a Pew Research Center series of studies that explore the behaviors, values, and opinions of the teens and Twentysomethings that make up the Millennial Generation. You can learn more about this here.

Dong Ngo is a CNET editor who covers networking and network storage, and writes about anything else he finds interesting. You can also listen to his podcast at insidecnetlabs.cnet.com. E-mail Dong.