Log off and have dinner!

When I was younger, the streetlights coming on at night was an indicator to me and my friends. It meant that play time was over and it was only a matter of minutes before our moms come to the front door and call us back into the house.

Now, there’s a new addition to “come on in.” “Log off and have dinner” might be the new mantra of moms, and the researchers Pew Internet confirm why. They found that “more than half (55%) of all online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites.” Okay, so that doesn’t even include email, chat, and neopets, which my 14-year-old cousin seems to be hooked on. I guess I’m a little surprised that they are on social networks even before high school, but then again, I am not (A three year old I met last week is able to navigate his way around their family PC better than his grandma. After finding that out, nothing fazes me anymore.)

One more thing to note is that older girls are more likely to use the sites. I thought this was interesting in light of a recent interview we conducted with Parkside Church for a youth website project. One of the pastors observed that older girls in his group seem to be more connected online. Hmmm.

To read about other findings like how often they found the teens checking their MySpace of Facebook accounts, and how they manage their online profiles, Pew Internet has made the report available online.

I think the challenge for us is that given that a lot of teens spend time online, how can we contribute to the kind of information they access? Our project with Parkside Church will be one where we can explore this possibility of getting teens involved with their church group online. Let us know of how you have been engaging teens in positive ways through your web efforts! We’d love to hear ideas or examples of web initiatives you know of.