From today’s New York Times, “The Lives of Teenagers Now: Open Blogs, Not Locked Diaries,” a really interesting article about how teens are beginning to use content creation as a way of public expression. The stat graph is:
According to the Pew survey, 57 percent of all teenagers between 12 and 17 who are active online – about 12 million – create digital content, from building Web pages to sharing original artwork, photos and stories to remixing content found elsewhere on the Web. Some 20 percent publish their own Web logs.
Note the “who are active online” part. And notice the “remix” part.
I love this quote too:
From school libraries and living rooms, millions of teenagers are staking out cyberterritory in places like MySpace.com, Xanga.com and Livejournal.com, where they matter-of-factly construct their individual online presence, often to the chagrin of parents and schoolteachers who have belatedly discovered whole nations of teenagers churning out content under their noses.
And there is a lot more. Read the whole thing if you want to get a grip on what’s happening “out there.”
The problem here, Will, is that you can’t quote their statistics on blogging unless you admit their definition of “blogging” is valid. 😉
Shuddup, Tom.
The problem here, Will, is that you can’t quote their statistics on blogging unless you admit their definition of “blogging” is valid. 😉
I griped a bit about the Pew study and the Times article over at my place. The Pew study’s survey questions seem to be looking for two main things:
1. Dangerous aspects of youthful blogging — fine.
2. Social aspects of blogging — fine, too. But, judging by their questions, Pew is interested in a consumerish notion of individuality centering on self, a small circle of friends, and music or other products (even if they remix them). Maybe that covers what young people are doing, but I hope that blogging does more, finally, than add a fast-paced tech layer to our country’s pervasive consumer’s sense of self. For now, though, Pew seems to be saying that the new emacipation is purely personal.
http://www.mchron.net/site/edublog_comments.php?id=P3335_0_13_0