This policy change comes with new safety features for teen users. They will get a warning pop-up before posting publicly. Only people in teens' circles can contact them by default. If a stranger joins a Hangout in which a teen is participating, the young person is temporarily removed and asked if they want to rejoin.

Google+ also launches a new Safety Center today with more information on these changes. "Our approach is straightforward," Horowitz writes. "Build awesome features that teens really want, encourage safe behavior through appropriate defaults and in-product help, and make abuse reporting tools easy to find and use."

A bunch of celebrity and brand pages focused on teenage users also launch today including +Nickelodeon, +GLEE and a bunch of other things we've never heard of.

This announcement comes on the heels of some major changes to privacy and identity on Google+. This week, Google has updated the real names policy to allow "alternate names" and "established pseudonyms." Google's motivation behind its naming policy is to establish a trustworthy environment populated by apparent real people. The thinking was that users with "handles," like jon992381, would be less accountable for their actions. Google has since found that it's not quite that simple, but it maintains its policy of requiring users to at least appear to be real human beings. Whether this actually makes the environment safer for teens (or anyone) is up for debate.

Google also replaced its more than 60 separate privacy policies with one overarching policy for all Google sites. There are no opt-outs for individual Google services anymore. Using any aspect of Google should be treated as sharing data with every part of it. This makes privacy on Google simpler to understand, but it also raises the stakes for users. Thorough explanations of Google's new policies can be found in its new Safety Center.

According to an analysis of 65,000+ mobile subscribers' phone bills, U.S. teens have tripled their data usage. In the third quarter of 2011, teens aged 13-17 averaged 320 MB of data per month. This number has increased 256% over the last year, and not surprisingly teens are are consuming data faster than any other age group. But when it comes to data usage, boys are consuming 382 MB per month while girls only use 266 MB. This is not the case when it comes to texting.

Teens are not very interested in making calls from their mobile devices, with voice usage down from 685 to 572 minutes per month. Overall, teens see texts as faster, easier and a lot more fun.

Nielsen issued a similar report last year, and discovered pretty much the same thing: That parents better get their teenagers an unlimited data plan, stat! Results from this past study showed that teens sent out more than six messages per waking hour. This is one less text per hour than the 2011 report.

The previous report also showed app usage on the rise, with 94% of teens saying they used the Internet, messaging, multimedia, gaming and apps on their phones.

Yet despite all this news about texting, teen sexting might actually be more of a myth. NPR recently reported that only 1% of teens have actually created and shared sexually explicit images.

As budding social creatures, teens value Facebook for the same reasons the original Facebook users did: visiting friends' profiles, commenting on friends' walls, and chatting. 47% said they'll continue using it as they did before, but only 4% said they will increase the time they spend there and 10% said they would leave Facebook all together.

Teenagers aren't thrilled about the changes on Facebook and 25% said they would be using Google+ more often. In fact, teens say that Google+ is actually more social than Facebook, which is trying to become more news-oriented.

Teens really disliked the news ticker, calling it a "scrolling stalker" that just felt like a distraction. They tended to worry that the ticker showed them information that they weren't supposed to be seeing, or that "is not theirs to see." And that's one feature that Google+ has no plans to build.

Wait, Teens Love Facebook's Timeline?

While adults had mixed responses to Facebook's Timeline, the group of teens surveyed who had obtained early access to it said they loved it. In fact, it's one of the few new Facebook features that they enjoy - 27% of teens in this study said Timeline was their all-time favorite feature.

Teenagers, Like, Really Take "Likes" Seriously

SRSLY, while the acting of "liking" something may not mean much for a brand on Facebook, it's really important to teenagers. A total of 57% of teens see "like" as a reflection of their very own personal brand, while 37% describe "like" as an endorsement to their friends (like a high-five approval, say). When it comes to brands, only 39% see this as a way to tell brands they'd like to receive updates from them, which is a trend we've reported on before. For teens, it's clear that "liking" is mostly something they do amongst friends, though 56% of teens say they've "liked" a brand after seeing a friend do the same on the news ticker.

Do you think teens will leave Facebook for Google+? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!

It's no surprise then that of mobile phones and children have repeatedly elicited moral panic. According to a 2010 survey by the Pew Research Center, 75% of 12- to 17-year-olds own cellphones. Project Tomorrow's Speak Up 2010 survey found that 20% of children from kindergarten through second grade said they owned cellphones, and 29% of those from third through fifth grade said they did. These children don't just own feature phones either; an increasing number say they own smartphones and have access not just to mobile voice, but texting and data plans as well.

There have been numerous stories in the news lately about teens in trouble due to their mobile behaviors. At ReadWriteWeb's 2WAY Summit, social researcher danah boyd will discuss teen sexting and its impact on technology companies.

Although sexting makes headlines, it isn't the only place in which we've seen great upheaval and concern surrounding teens' mobile habits. Here are some of the other stories we've covered here at ReadWriteWeb in the last year that demonstrate how mobile phones are changing teens' communication patterns - with each other, at home, and at school.

Cellphones in the Classroom: Distraction or Tool?

Although cellphones are teens' primarily communication devices, most schools continue to ban them from the classroom, arguing that they are a distraction and that students' data plans and 3G access allow them to bypass schools' web filtering mechanisms.

Despite students' interest in using cellphones at school and even parents' willingness to pay for the devices and the data plans, over 65% of principals surveyed said they'd refuse to let students do so.

Cellphones as the Point of Control

The argument for getting a cellphone - whether it was an argument from a teen or a parent - used to involve safety. But teens are now clear that the primary reason they want one is to stay in touch with their friends.

For parents, however, a children's cellphone is still very much a point of control. Parents put limits on the number of minutes and number of texts. They admit to regularly looking through the contents of their children's phones, and they say that they take away access to cellphones as punishment.

But cellphones offer another point of control and surveillance as well. In April, ReadWriteWeb's Sarah Perez wrote about the potential to have parental controls baked in to handsets. Parents would be able to track phones' location, turn off access to texting when the phone (or more specifically, a car a teen is driving) is in motion, preview photos that are sent from the phone, and monitor Web searches and application downloads.

Will these sorts of technologies that give parents better control help assuage fears about teens' mobile phone usage? Will they help convince schools to let students bring their phones into the classrooms?

After all, the pervasiveness of these devices means that we've reached the point where the vast majority of teens are carrying a small computing device in their pockets or backpacks? Is that technology cause for celebration or panic?

That may not be true, as it turns out. A new study coming out of Northwestern University, discovered that college students have a decided lack of Web savvy, especially when it comes to search engines and the ability to determine the credibility of search results. Apparently, the students favor search engine rankings above all other factors. The only thing that matters is that something is the top search result, not that it's legit.

During the study, one of the researchers asked a study participant, "What is this website?" The student answered, "Oh, I don't know. The first thing that came up."

That exchange sums up the overall results from this study: many students trusted in rankings above all else. In fact, a quarter of the students, when assigned information-seeking tasks, said they chose a website because - and only because - it was the first search result.

Only 10% of the students made mention of the site's author or that author's credentials while completing tasks. However, in reviewing the screen-capture footage of those respondents, the researchers found that even in this supposedly savvy minority, none actually followed through to verify the identification or qualifications of the site's authors.

Google was not the only search engine used in the study, but it was one in which the students put a lot of trust. The students felt emotionally tied to the service in some cases, noting how much they loved it and depended on it. (Those who used Yahoo! said they merely "liked" it.)

Regardless the choice of search engine, though, the first step in information-seeking was always the use of such a service, which was typically referred to as a verb. And yes, in addition to "google it," some even said they would "yahoo it."

Wikipedia Not Trusted as Much

Another interesting finding from the study involved the use of Wikipedia. Perhaps because of teachers' insistence over the years that the user-generated encyclopedia is not a credible source of information, only a third of the students used Wikipedia to search for answers when given particular tasks. This is a drop from earlier studies (like Raine & Tancer, 2007) which showed Wikipedia use at 46% among students.

Other popular trusted sources included SparkNotes (a study guide site), WedMD, Planned Parenthood, CNN, BBC, Microsoft (specifically Encarta and Office-related resources) and those sites with a .gov or .edu extension. Some students even thought that .org domain name meant a site was inherently trustworthy - they weren't aware that the .org extension can be freely registered just like .com and is not for nonprofit use only, as may have originally been intended.

Students Need Media Literacy Education

Over 1,000 students were surveyed and then the researchers randomly sampled 102 students from 1,060 students who had participated in the survey. The demographics of the group were both ethnically and racially diverse, reaching a representative sample of first-year college students at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

In summary, the findings showed that students are not always turning to the most relevant clues to determine the credibility of online content, said the researchers Eszter Hargittai, Lindsay Fullerton, Ericka Menchen-Trevino and Kristen Yates Thomas. Further initiatives that help educate people in this domain are needed, they claim.

Image credit in original article: flickr user Paulo Fehlauer

Around the same time as the "privacy debacle," as we like to call it, unfolded, Facebook also announced a "Safety Advisory Board," a group whose purpose is to review safety-related procedures and documentation as well as make suggestions regarding best practices and other procedures. How about this safe practice, Facebook: don't publicize people's private information?

Facebook Safety Center: Educating Users on How Facebook Did Them Wrong

But the world changed and Facebook changed with it, or at least that's what CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims. The oversharers of the iGeneration have generally shrugged their shoulders at the threat of their private photos and updates having gone public. Their outrage? Practically non-existent. After all, this is the same group who grew up around sex offender scandals on MySpace, posted sexy "MySpace angles" photos mom and dad would be shocked to see, and who developed the trend of "sexting," texting revealing pictures to their crush du jour. So their status updates are public? Who cares?, they think.

Ah, but they should. The publicizing of private data has led to a host of issues in its wake, including harassment and cyberbullying, to name a few. Cases of teens committing suicide after becoming victim to abuse via social networks have also occurred, unfortunately.

No one could argue that cyberbullying and the like could occur among groups of friends, whether or not Facebook remained a private network. It's a valid contention - the dark underbelly of the human condition allows such behavior to exist, even amongst friends. But by exposing every little detail, photo and link to a user base that seems oblivious to the need of plugging the privacy holes, Facebook is simply allowing there to be more opportunity for someone to actually see the nasty comment made about them on a wall post... or the embarrassing photo of someone cheating on their boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse. It provides the fodder for the cyberbullies and the tools for those who seek to stalk, monitor or control another's behavior. It provides more avenues for abuse.

At the very least, it should provide a few tools to the potential victims, too.

Safety Center: Q&A's on Abuse Prevention, Reporting

That's what the Safety Center is for, at least in part. With Q&A's for how to deal with abuse, stalking, cyberbullying and unwanted wall posts, messages and chats, a good bit of the Center's guidance is aimed at reporting and stopping this unwanted behavior. Even in other Safety Center sections outside of "safety for teens," this information is essentially just rehashed for others, like parents and teachers, for example. (Teachers and law enforcement professionals get a few extra tips about Facebook, too, like how to maintain a professional presence or how to report a sex offender).

According to the Facebook blog post, the Safety Center's overhaul now features quadruple the information as in the prior help center, plus a "cleaner, more navigable" interface. The launch is one of the first initiatives from the Facebook Advisory Board, a new coalition of members including Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely, WiredSafety, Childnet International and The Family Online Safety Institute. Together, the board members will "accelerate our efforts to make Facebook a better and safer place to engage," notes Sullivan.

But Facebook already had an opportunity to make itself a safer place and they blew it. Private networks of friends and family sharing content amongst themselves doesn't lead to as much harassment, abuse and victimization of its users beyond the typical family brawl or fight amongst friends. But when you can see anyone's content - especially the stuff they thought was private - problems are going to occur. Facebook's new Safety Center is the result of the company having to deal with the fallout from that choice.

According to a recent article in the New York Times, teens are more likely to use text messaging than Twitter for keeping up with their friends. Today's teens feel somewhat uncomfortable with the public nature of the communication that takes place on Twitter, and, besides, they just don't see the point in broadcasting what they're doing to the whole world. Yet even without this age group's participation, Twitter has seen amazing success, proving the point that a new technology does not have to be adopted by this young group of users in order to make it big.

Twitter's Youth Sees Growth

Although Twitter didn't attract teens at the outset, that could still change. In fact, it looks like that change may already be underway. A newly released chart from comScore breaks down the age groups of Twitter users and plots each group's growth over time, relative to audience. The most surprising revelation from this chart is the steep incline seen in the age group 12-24. Over the past few months, this group's participation levels have been increasing dramatically.

In reading the chart, a score of "100" means that the age group on Twitter is represented in perfect proportion to how much that age group uses the rest of the Internet as a whole. Go over 100 and that means the age group is represented more heavily on Twitter than they are represented on the rest of the web. In July, those aged 12-24 scored a "121" - a score that was only in the mid-70s a mere six months ago.

Statistics Can be Misleading

But wait - a quick glance at these statistics can be misleading. At first, it appears that the chart simply shows the increasing participation levels of teens (and young adults) on Twitter. While that may be true, it's important to note that the actual number of younger users on Twitter is still much lower than those of their adult counterparts. In fact, the New York Times recently reported that only 11% of Twitter users are aged 12 to 17, according to comScore.

Plus, there's the fact that the age group 12-24 represents an odd way of breaking up the demographics. Why not 12-18 instead? The way Twitter's user base is sliced, there's no way to tell how many users are teens and how many are young adults in their 20s.

Finally, the chart is showing audience growth compared to the rest of the Internet as a whole. That's also an interesting way of charting the demographics of Twitter, to say the least.

All that being said, the data seen here is still valuable to some extent. It's interesting to see this market segment's growth, even if it's sliced and diced in this odd way. But does this mean that teens are going to start tweeting sometime soon? Let us know what you think in the comments.

According to Robson's report (available here courtesy of the Financial Times), today's teens don't really consume any of what you could call "traditional" media. For example, notes Robson, they don't read newspapers because why bother reading "pages and pages of text" when they could instead "watch the news summarized on the internet or TV?"

They're also not interested in listening to the radio. Although they may occasionally tune in to various stations, they prefer online sites like Last.fm where they can stream music ad-free and, more importantly, where they get to pick the playlist - not some unknown DJ.

What's more surprising, perhaps, are Robson's statements about teens and TV consumption. He says that his peers still watch TV, often tuning into a particular season of TV show or sporting event like football, but the group of "regular TV watchers" who tune into daily programs is shrinking. Also, teens watch less TV than ever before thanks to online streaming services like BBC's iPlayer. (Robson lives in the U.K.). When commercials come on, teens, unlike more patient older generations who grew up without fast-forward buttons and DVRs, simply change the channel.

Internet and New Media

Given that teens aren't into old media like newspapers and radio, you would think that they would be adopting the latest new media crazes like Twitter in droves. Apparently, that's not the case. In fact, Robson says teens see no point in using Twitter. "Most have signed up for the service," notes Robson, "but then just leave it as they realize that they are not going to update it." The teens realize that no one is viewing their profile, so they see tweeting as a pointless activity, he adds. Besides, to update Twitter via text message takes credit (referring to cell phone text plans) and they'd rather use that credit to text their friends.

Twitter aside, most teens are into the Internet. They use Facebook for social networking (so it's not just for "old people?"), they search and research topics with Google, watch videos on YouTube, and download music for their iPods from file-sharing sites. Although that last one is an illegal activity, Robson says it's still very popular since teens are very reluctant to actually pay for music.

Finally, when it comes to online marketing, teens do like viral campaigns but see banner ads and pop-ups as annoying and pointless. They tend to ignore them entirely and never click through.

Teens and Mobile

Although teens may be envious of modern smartphones with Internet data plans, they tend to not own these types of devices because they're too expensive. Instead, teens typically use their phones simply for talking and texting. Video messaging and video calling are also not popular, again due to cost. Teens don't bother with mobile email either, not needing to be hyper-connected to their inboxes like the adults are. However, one thing teens do use their phones for (outside of chatting and texting) is sharing music files with their friends. They do this using Bluetooth, since the service is free and most phones now support it.

Author's Note: Share music via Bluetooth? In reading that, I immediately felt old. Not only have I never done this myself, I didn't even know people did this. Were you aware?

Do You Agree with Robson?

Morgan Stanley notes that Robson's piece "provides one of the clearest and most thought-provoking insights we have seen" and that's why they published it even though they don't have statistics to back up his statements. But by doing so, they're saying that they believe what he reports is accurate and representative of today's teens media consumption.

Of course, without hard data, a report like this has to be taken with a grain of salt. Still, in reading through it, nothing sounds all that shocking or revealing. That's probably because on some level we already know what Robson says to be true. Today's "digital natives" have grown up surrounded by technology and the Internet, so naturally they're not going to be as interested in old media the way older generations are.

Do you agree that the trends Robson notes are real? Or have you seen behavior that contradicts what he reports?

Image credit: flickr user Paulo Fehlauer

The results of their tests, recently published in The Journal of Adolescence, showed that the girls who excessively talked with their friends about their issues had significantly higher levels of depression. Today's online tools provide even more ways for this to occur. Says Dr. Davila, "Texting, instant messaging and social networking make it very easy for adolescents to become even more anxious, which can lead to depression."

The problem with these electronic tools du jour is that they allowed the girls to discuss the same problems over and over again. This caused them to get stuck obsessing over a particular emotional setback, unable to move forward.

A Couple of Caveats

Turning a critical eye to this research, though, we have to wonder: is it really Facebook and IM that's getting the girls down? Or is it just the nature of teenage girls to talk themselves to tears? We already know that teenage girls engage in excessive talking and rumination...and they've been doing so for years. It's just the means by which they communicate these days that has changed.

Years ago, those same girls may have spent hours on the phone or writing out their thoughts in secret "slambooks." Even longer ago, they probably sat at their desks writing out long, emotional letters. For many girls, chatting about or dwelling on their problems is just a part of growing up.

It's not necessarily the medium through which the chatter tasks place that's the issue - it's the amount of discussion that leads to the feelings of depression. Said Dr. Davila, "[The girls] often don't realize that excessive talking is actually making them feel worse."

It's also worth pointing out that the study involved a relatively small sample of girls: 83 in total, which doesn't seem like a large enough group to form any definitive, universal conclusions.

What we can conclude here is that social networking sites haven't changed anything about how we communicate - they've just given us a different platform through which we do so. And our interactions with other online can mirror those we have off.

Update: Please note one of the study's authors has contributed to the discussion to clarify the details of their research. Although the article we linked to examined the study's findings in the context of Facebook, the actual study did not examine Facebook, she says. However, the DailyMail article is quoting the lead researcher Dr. Davila as saying "Texting, instant messaging and social networking make it very easy for adolescents to become even more anxious, which can lead to depression. Teenage friends have always chatted about their problems, asking each other why a boy didn't call or if they should break up with a boyfriend. But frequently discussing the same problem can intensify into an unhealthy activity for those who use Facebook and other electronic means to obsess about it." While the actual paper may not have focused on Facebook, it's clear that the researcher is thinking about how this sort of co-rumination occurs using today's electronic means. The headline "Facebook Depression" is meant to be a little tongue-in-cheek and it should not be taken literally to mean that using Facebook causes depression.

Image Credit: Dawn Ashley

A majority of teens, percentage wise, join social networks, but it's the adults that still make up the bulk of these web sites. That's because adults make up a larger proportion of the U.S. population than teens, reports Pew Internet & American Life Project. So the 65% of online teens actually represents fewer users than the 35% of adults who participate online. Of course, out of that 35%, the adults that tend to join social networks still skews younger: 75% of those 18-24 use these networks, but only 7% of the adults 65+ do.

It's Not About Professional Networking After All

You may think that many adults have joined the online trend mainly to network professionally with others in their field. However, that turns out not to be true. Instead adults, like teens, are there to socialize with their friends and people they already know. Nearly nine in ten social network users (89%) say they use the networks to stay in touch with friends, and 57% say they use it to make plans with friends. Under half (49%) use the sites to make new friends.

Surprisingly, those on social networks for professional purposes are not as common as you may have thought. Only 6% of adults use LinkedIn, the online social network dedicated to professional networking, but 72% use other social networks (50% use MySpace, 22% use Facebook) for both professional and personal networking purposes. The most interesting finding is that less than a third of social network users are using them for professional purposes, regardless of which site they use.

More Tidbits: Demographics

Some other findings confirm what we've heard before about social networks: MySpace users are more likely to be women, Hispanic, black, and have a high school education or some college experience. The median age is 27. Facebook users are more likely to be male and have a college degree. The median age there is 26. LinkedIn, however, tends to be comprised of more older, white men with a college degree and median age of 40. The prevalence of men on these networks could be explained by the fact that men are more likely than women to have two or more online profiles (54% vs. 47%).

What It All Means

It appears that the trend of using social networking sites for professional purposes is not quite as common as we may have thought. Although there are portions of the population both young and old that do so, it isn't the main reason people join social networks. It's more common for people to go online to use the networks as they were originally intended - to socialize. That's not a bad thing, we suppose, but it will be interesting to see what this means for sites like LinkedIn, whose main purpose is to cater to the professional crowd.

We've already seen LinkedIn attempt to expand their network in new ways not too long ago. Just this past year, we've watched as LinkedIn added LinkedIn applications, an effort to make their network more interesting and dynamic. They also added helpful features for business-minded folks like the events section, which debuted last November. But it was only a month ago that the company brought in a new CEO, or rather, an old one - the company founder Reid Hoffman. Perhaps that means LinkedIn is planning to shake up their site and make it more relevant and popular among online users than it is today. ]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/more_adults_than_ever_on_socia.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/more_adults_than_ever_on_socia.php Trends Fri, 16 Jan 2009 06:15:13 -0800 Sarah Perez