More Teens Are Creating and Sharing Material on the Internet

28% of online teens have blogs and blogging growth is almost entirely fueled by girls; Super communicators rise as email fades as a communication tool for teens.

WASHINGTON -- Content creation by teenagers continues to grow, with 64% of online teenagers ages 12 to 17 engaging in at least one type of content creation, up from 57% of online teens in 2004.

Fueled by new technologies, websites, and social network domains such as Facebook and MySpace, large numbers of teens share and create materials online:

• 39% of online teens share their own artistic creations online such as artwork, photos stories, or videos
• 33% of online teens create or work on webpages or blogs for others, including friends, groups they belong to or school assignments
• 28% of online teens have created their own blog, up from 19% in 2004, and almost completely driven by the popularity of blogging among girls
• 27% of online teens maintain their own webpage
• 26% of online teens remix content they find online into their own creations

Girls continue to dominate most elements of content creation. Some 35% of all teen girls blog, compared with 20% of online boys, and 54% of wired girls post photos online compared with 40% of online boys. Boys, however, do dominate one area – posting of video content online – online teen boys are nearly twice as likely as online girls (19% vs. 10%) to have posted a video online somewhere where someone else could see it.

These findings are highlighted in a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, "Teens and Social Media." The report is based on a national phone survey of 935 youth ages 12-17 in November 2006. The margin of error for the survey is 4 percentage points.

The survey found that content creation is not just about sharing creative output; it is also about participating in conversations fueled by that content. Nearly half (47%) of online teens have posted photos where others can see them, and 89% of those teens who post photos say that people comment on the images at least "some of the time." Teens who post videos report a similarly large incidence of feedback, with nearly three quarters (72%) of video posters receiving comments on their videos.

"Content is created for an audience," notes Amanda Lenhart, Senior Research Specialist and one of the authors of the report. "For teens, the beauty of the internet, particularly social networking websites, is that content can be created and easily shared among a network of friends. Even more compelling is that people in those social networks can easily comment and give feedback on shared content."

However, many teen content creators do not simply plaster their creative endeavors on the Web for anyone to view; many teens limit access to content that they share. Some 66% of teens with social network profiles restrict access to their profiles in some way and 77% of teens who upload photos restrict access to them at least "some of the time." In contrast, 58% of adults who post photos restrict access to them in some way. A smaller percentage of teens who upload videos (54%) restrict access to them.