Teenagers spend their days texting, tweeting and hanging around on YouTube, Facebook and MySpace! Honestly, that’s what I assumed too. Turns out I’m wrong, and I needed Nielsen to teach me that. The audience measurement company is releasing a brand new report on teens and media with a lofty promise of serious myth busting and hard fact presenting that will downright knock your socks off.
Ready for some eye-openers? Here we go:
With an ever-expanding media universe, social networks play an increasingly important roles in the lives of teens … as they do in pretty much everyone else’s, too. The 33 million or so teenagers (aged 12 to 17) in the U.S., against all odds, keep on consuming quite a lot of non-connected media, such as TV, radio and – get this – even dead-tree stuff like newspapers next to their online activities.
According to Nielsen, teenagers are far from abandoning TV for so-called new media. In fact, television viewing rates among U.S. teens have actually gone up 6% in the last five years. Sure, they browse the Web a lot, but far less than you do. The average time spent browsing for an adult person in the United States comes down to about 29 hours and 15 minutes per month. While I reach that average almost on a daily basis, teens are said to browse the Web a lot less than that: 11 hours and 32 minutes per month on average. I honestly thought the average teen would spend that much time on the Web a week, at least.
Here are some other kickers, straight from the report:
- if you’re between 25 and 34 years old, you watch online videos about 35% more than teens do (and they don’t have to go to the office every weekday)
- Teenagers enjoy video games, but they don’t necessarily carry a particular interest in ones that are violent of nature
- Teens who recall advertising are 44% more likely to say they liked the ads than adults (ok now I’m scared)
- 1 out of 4 teens reads newspapers daily
- one last takeaway from the report is that teens evidently have their favorite TV shows, websites and genre preferences … only they’re almost exactly the same as their parents’.
You can download the report over at NielsenWire, or simply consult the embedded file at the bottom of this post.
Let us know which finding surprised you the most, if any.
Awaiting spam from Mani and his damn marketing company.
LOL, well at least there’s no more worst pizza guy
SO TRUE.
Hi Robin,
That’s quite interesting data. I’m bit surprised too. I guess they are hooked on Hannah Montana and cartoon shows.
Thanks for the post.
Mani Raj
Havoc Marketing
So that’s like the 30th spam comment you’ve posted here today, haven’t you?
P.S.: Don’t post your entire name if you’re gonna do spam. We like to imagine our spammers as faceless, nameless middle aged dwarves. With names, they just seem too…too human
arggh..
So you think you have to post every single article with nonsense.
Please ban this guy. Please.
Stupid fool think’s he’s going to get backlinks.
Who’s let the monkeys loose with useless backlink e-books again?
Wo! You guys seriously need some Anger Management.
There’s way too much hostility going on here.
Now be kind — he’s practicing for his next gig as a shill movie reviewer [”… breathtaking! Keeanu Reeves and Megan Fox are oscar shoo ins!”
Out of morbid curiosity I looked at this idiot’s site. It’s the only time I’ve seen downloadable software SOLD OUT. LOL.
Nice scam, freak.
I looked at his site. It doesn’t look like a scam. Some of the articles and products are quite good. I don’t know which downloadable software you are talking about lazysupper. But some of them do sell out.
I do 18 hours of internet a day, I must be a broken teenager.
Or you are playing WoW
wait, 96 text messages a day?!
sent or received. not too surprising, that one.
Teens use texting in lieu of IM. Which is why to those ‘older’ (even just early 20s), the stat seems quite surprising.
Wrong. As a teen of 15 texting is not used “in lieu” but “as well” as IMing. IMing is used by us a lot more than most people, as well as Twitter and Texting. It’s say IM:Text is aboyt 60:40 either way depending on the person.
In addition, in Ireland at least, way more time is spent online than watching our crappy TV stations.
I only “jump” on celebrity blogs, thanks.
I think Danah Boyd beat Nielsen to the punch with the notion that teens don’t twitter: http://www.zeph...rs_to_ques.html
As far as the more savvy teen set goes, she adds an interesting nuance that “Twitter is for friends; Facebook is for everybody”: http://www.zeph...ter_is_for.html
Well, as a teen, I can tell you that this is a total crock of bull. Maybe I’m an exception, but I abandoned traditional media a long time ago. I get most of my news through blogs, online columns, and podcasts. The only traditional media I do consume is through Hulu and other online means.
same here! i haven’t touched a newspaper since i was 10 (now i’m 14 if your wondering)! I rarely watch my tv, Hulu does it for me! But i guess that’s just me, cuz my friends don’t watch a lot of internet tv–but boy do they love TEXTING! but still i would’ve thought that middle/high schoolers would spend more time online, then what’s shown on the graph, but i guess that’s just me!
Yeah it’s B.S.
I’m a teen and I use the internet way more than 11 hours per month. More like 11 hours per week.
I think the fact you’re reading a tech blog and using terms like “traditional media” means you’re most definitely an exception…
You also read TechCrunch, I think you’re exception (that’s a compliment)
You can’t take TechCrunch to the crapper…
Thanks for the post, I love it when when Web 2.0 people get reality smacked in our face.
I find “1 out of 4 teens reads newspapers daily” dubious. Are you sure the question wasn’t “Do you know what a newspaper is?”.
“Teenagers enjoy video games, but they don’t necessarily carry a particular interest in ones that are violent of nature” – I always thought this was a misnomer, but wasn’t ever able to verify it.
It seemed like something some old business suit would expect — that: “all teens like violence!” …but in reality the teen just wants a FUN game – violence doesn’t really enter the equation unless it helps the games “fun-ness”.
I think one thing we should all keep in mind. This study is only as good as the people that were polled/studied. I’ve lost faith in Nielsen having a good cross section of the country anymore.
- Teenagers enjoy video games, but they don’t necessarily carry a particular interest in ones that are violent of nature
- 1 out of 4 teens reads newspapers daily
Bull $#@&%!
There’s simply no way that 1 out of 4 teens reads a newspaper daily. There’s no way that 1 out of 4 people under age 60 reads a newspaper daily if you’re talking about the dead tree version.
They didn’t say “paper version”. Wall Street Journal on a Kindle and NY Times on the iphone are still traditional newspapers..
“if you’re between 25 and 34 years old, you watch online videos about 35% more than teens do” – people do this in an economic recession??? kids prob DON”T watch more b/c they’re in school (not at the office where they can waste time online)
this is true. most mid level to low level workers just watch damn youtube instead of work and their main goal for the day is to find funny ones to email coworkers and friends.
industry should watch out about being more trendy than consumers, TV is still number one.
What I find very remarkable is that if these teens have mobile video, they watch more mobile video (13minutes) than online video. Hard to belief.
I am also surprised by the overall number of hours they ‘watch’ TV. What is the definition of ‘watching’ ? Should they not also then measure ‘watching a light bulb’?
Other question; anyone knows how many of these teens have their own TV set and how many have their own computer?
riiight sure nielsen who’s market requires cable to be relevent is saying they are still relevant… this is me believing their bs…
Next they’re going to say that cable has nothing to worry about with vod via the internet. It’s like the iraq leaders broadcasting “nothing is wrong we are beating the evil american’s” even after we took over baghdad
Having a teenager I ahve the following comments:
1 – “if you’re between 25 and 34 years old, you watch online videos about 35% more than teens do (and they don’t have to go to the office every weekday)” The office is where most of them watch the videos. First thing Monday morning, during lunch, after 4 on Friday, etc…
2 – Do they differentiate the TV watching while texting or chating (or even “doing” homework)
3 – “1 out of 4 teens reads newspapers daily” Other than the funny pages?
4 – “…teens evidently have their favorite TV shows, websites and genre preferences … only they’re almost exactly the same as their parents’.” Does this mean that the kids are mature or the adults are fascinated with Gossip Girl or Hannah?
It’s not like most teens actually go around trying to build their own computers from scratch! The majority (as in ppl from my middle school in general) surf the web for stupid youtube vids, get on FB to take stupid quizzes, and catch up on celeb gossip, even IMing is even becoming less and less “old-fashion” since ppl just text 24/7 (which gets on MY nerves since ppl just pull out their ph in the middle of a convo, so rude n annoying!) As far as watching TV goes, i’m guessing that the TV is like running in the backround all time time, while they’re texting!!
P.S.I personally HATE Gossip Girl and Hannah Montana (and yes, i’m a 14 year old girl–with some sanity still left!!!) since i feel like my IQ drops everytime i even come across those shows!!
Explanation: Teens are lazy. It’s much more easy to turn on the TV change channels than turning the computer on, open the browser, find the website and then decide what to view or hear. Youtube vids are short and requires a lot of interations.
What I think is more scary is all those people (+ teens) that use the web frequently and still doesn’t have any interest in computers thought they use a lot of time in front of one..
They always expect a computer-nerd-friend to solve their problems and doesn’t bother learning on their own..
Please comment if you have any idea why people behave like this and if you have any experiment in changing this attitude.
This report seems bogus.
1/4 teens do not read the daily newspaper. I couldn’t even read any more after that.
I’m 16 and I gladly say I agree with most everything that has been said in the report. I can’t believe it takes a study to tell the truth. Im unusual (of course) but most of the kids in my IB school (some are really smart but some also do drugs) are as dumb as my parent in regards to computer skills. They have trouble printing, using simple tools on photoshop, websites, and most of them don’t even know hulu exists (that’s right) Remember: most of the teenagers these days grew up on nintendo 64 and gameboys w/o color. They’re not that far from u guys
These aren’t hard number obviously. It all depends on your research sample.
Rasmussen Reports (in this article) deliver a slightly different picture:
“Just 30% of Americans say they read a print version of their local newspaper every day or nearly every day, but under the age of 40, only half as many (15%) say the same.”
Regardless, I too find it very hard to believe that 25% of teens read a print newspaper on a daily basis.
As the father of two teenagers (boy and girl) I find this research extraordinarily improbable.
Having witnessed the behaviour of teens (all their friends) for 5 years, I don’t recognise the picture they paint here at all.
* They DO multi-screen
* Their behaviour varies between term-time and holidays
* They watch and create many more videos online than any adults I know
Seems like the sort of report on tidal flows that King Cunute would have had written.
Even if I am wrong today, I won’t be tomorrow.
I am surprised, and impressed, that 1 out of 3 teenagers are using mobile web. Phones with a highly usable browsers will be an absolute necessity in a few years.
There can be no way that this data is correct. How can those aged 65+ spend longer on the web on average in a month than 12-17 year olds?
Interesting how so many people here are taking it as correct because a big company have produced it and are producing half-baked hypotheses to back it up.
Can someone from Nielsen check the data and report back?
This is just another reminder that online population, especially those who hang out in the “social media strata” are not representative of the general population. There are striking psychographic and lifestyle differences between online and probability-based offline samples. Yes, it is hard to believe, but there ARE folks out there who do not use e-mail, go online less than 1-2 days a week, and have never heard of Twitter and Facebook. But if you want your research to be truly representative of ENTIRE American population, you HAVE to include these folks in your sample. Just like Nielsen, MRI, and other companies do… Otherwise it is like studying wine and beer drinking habits of people by surveying people only in bars (and thus, omitting those who drink at home, parties, restaurants, etc.) And btw, it is true that teens tend to be more MOBILE, and use SMS more than e-mail, twitter, or IM on the “stationary” web.
Your comment is the most spot on comment here. Too many people who frequent tech blogs end up just talking to themselves, not realizing that there’s a HUGE other world out there where the majority of the people couldn’t care less about technology.
Yes, folks, as surprising as it may be, the VAST majority of consumers (and I’m talking about EVERYONE) out there DO NOT listen to or watch streaming media.
Clearly the TV remains the center of video entertainment in the home. The interesting thing here is that teens, like everyone else, will start demanding good internet content to supplement their cable/satellite content — they’ll just want it on the big TV. The TV manufacturers and cable/satellite companies who deliver that content (in a convenient intuitive way) will win. And if no one does it right, users will move to laptops and Boxee until the content comes to the TV. This is a huge potential market. The race is on.
(Disclaimer – I work for Macrovision, who makes a lot of the guides you see on TVs and set-top boxes, and we’re working on the “merge the internet onto the big TV” problem.)
This report is BS. Im not saying I represent everyone but seriously, i know some people still watch a lot of tv, but thats certainly not the majority. Everyone I know uses his pc daily, so 11 hours a month already seems ridiculous. Come on, at school I’m already on an average of 2 hours a day on the pc and there’s nothing remotely interesting on tv that i can’t watch online, which a lot of young people also know very very well. And about newspapers, i know maybe 2 people in the entire world who actually read them when they buy them.