Over the past month, our team have been conducting a study into the online motivations of digital teens. The study involved morphological interviews and online surveys with 1905 digital teens, and provided some interesting insights into the online behavior of teenagers.
"The internet has multiple personalities. You can do multiple things on the internet… For some teens, the internet is their best friend, because they can have fun with it, they can connect with it. They can do whatever they want with it. It allows them to be whoever they want.” - Digital Teen (2012)
Highly Connected
To begin with, our study found that digital teens are highly connected. When exploring the personal ownership of internet enabled devices, we found that 79% of digital teens own a personal computer, 51% have their own smartphone, and 24% own a personal tablet.
Selectively Engaged
However, despite their level of online connection, digital teens can be surprisingly selective with their friendships and attention. Our study found that the average digital teen had only 4 close friends, and considered 14 people to be in their social network. Furthermore, 97% of digital teens said they were happy with these friendships.
In terms of online attention, our study found four destinations that digital teens tended to visit on a daily basis: 72% of digital teens use search engines daily, 65% use Facebook daily, 57% watch online videos daily, and 30% play online games daily. In contrast, despite the media hype, 85% of digital teens have never used Pinterest, and 63% have never used Twitter.
The Drivers of Digital Behavior
Highly connected but selectively engaged, digital teens can be a challenging audience. So what are the drivers of digital teen behavior, and how can they be harnessed by brands? Find out by viewing the following Slideshare presentation: