Survey: Teens prefer instant messages to phone

By Jeff Palfini

(IDG) -- Their parents' generation fought to use the family phone. Today's teens fight over the keyboard.

A new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project says teenagers have adopted the Internet -- and instant messaging -- so completely that it has even replaced face-to-face communication as the primary mode of interacting for some teens.

The study concluded that of the approximately 13 million American teenagers who use the Net, 74 percent use instant messaging. Surprisingly, one-fifth of the teens using IM say it is their primary means of communicating with friends. The study extrapolated the results from a survey of 754 youngsters between the ages of 12 and 17 and their parents.

"Our sense from talking with these teens is that the Internet expands their network of friends," says Amanda Lenhart, principal author of the Pew report. "They keep in touch with people they normally would not because instant messaging can be a more casual way of talking with someone you met at summer camp or someone you have not seen in awhile."

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Teens say the Internet also helps them to build and maintain friendships. Forty-eight percent say the Net improves their current friendships, while 32 percent say the Internet and instant messaging have helped them make new friends.

Feeling Awkward

One reason online communication is so popular is that it allows teens to avoid some of the awkward elements of social interaction, like blushing and stammering, that can prevent shy teenagers from engaging in conversations.

The study found that 37 percent of teens use instant messaging to say something they could not have said in person or over the phone. For instance, 17 percent of IM users have used the medium to ask someone out on a date. Thirteen percent have announced over IM that they were breaking off a relationship, no doubt ending the message with sad-face emoticons, the punctuation-mark icons that flourish in cyberspace.

Internet communication is not without its detractors. Fifty-seven percent of parents surveyed say they are worried that their teen might be contacted by a stranger online. The concern is not without merit: Almost 60 percent of the teens reported such a situation.

Perhaps more alarming is that a full 50 percent of teens have sent a message to a stranger. The media is peppered with instances of sexual predators meeting their prey in online chat rooms. And a study released this week from the University of New Hampshire at Durham's Crimes Against Children Research Center found that 20 percent of online teens have received sexual advances from a stranger online.

Cause for Concern?

For the most part, the teens are not worried. In the UNH study, only 20 percent of teens who were approached online are upset by it. Seventy-five percent say they aren't concerned by the unsolicited advances. Pew's Lenhart says this is because most teens feel confident online.

"Teens feel more comfortable online because it is not a physical world to them," Lenhart says. "While they may be exposed to advances or images they don't like, they don't feel that they will be physically harmed because they know how to block offensive users in chat and they believe it would be hard for predators to track them down."

Parents aren't so comfortable with their teens' Internet savvy. Lenhart says the report revealed that parents check on what their kids are doing online to a surprising degree. While only 27 percent of teens felt that their parents were checking up on them, 61 percent of parents reported examining their teen's computer to see what they had been up to.

However, the study also finds that parents who are more familiar with the Internet are more likely to be more comfortable with their children's safety online.

While the pitfalls of the Internet and instant messaging are a source of concern, Lenhart says that overall, both parents and teens have positive feelings about these growing mediums for teen talk.

"I would emphasize in the end that parents and kids think the Internet is a good thing," says Lenhart. "They realize it has its flaws, but in the final tally they believe it is a positive thing in their kids' lives."