Kids Today

We hear often enough from youth marketing groups how younger generations are leading the online revolution; how they are constantly wired and highly tech-savvy. Well, new findings from Ipsos Reid suggest that teens are not quite online as much as stereotypes suggest, and the online time they spend is rather narrowly focused. What’s more, teens’ comfort level with technology is actually much lower than adults.

According to Ipsos Reid’s survey of thousands of Canadian youth aged 12 to 17, the time spent by teens online is actually rather limited, with teens spending, on average, 13 hours per week on the Internet, compared to a weekly average of 19 hours for online adults. And teens’ time online has not increased at all since the last survey performed four years ago.

There are at least a couple of factors that might account for the comparatively less time teens spend on online, say Ipsos Reid analysts. One is the influence parents still have on teens: more than half of online teens surveyed said their parents place time limits or curfews on their access.
Text messaging, we’d argue, is a big factor too, as it directly displaces instant messaging, which is a top wired activity for kids.

Also at play, says Ipsos, are findings that show only a minority of teens (37%) agree that using the Internet is an "important part of their day." That compares to 51 percent of adults who view the Internet as that important.

All the while, teens don’t see themselves as being technologically advanced. Only about a quarter (28%) of online teens would describe themselves as very skilled or an expert on the Internet, and almost as many (24%) admit to not being skilled at all. The remaining respondents identify themselves as fairly skilled.

Where the Internet does remain very important to kids largely is in its ability to facilitate the things that teenagers like to do: listen to music, play games and, most importantly, socialize. Teens usage is narrowly limited to these three activities, say the findings, and social networks lead the way. The good majority of online Canadian teens, says Ipsos, consider the Internet to be important to their social lives, and a fill 88% say they have participated in an online social activity. More than half (59%) visit online social networks or communities a few times a week to daily.

What might not so clear, however, is whether being wired, or better yet wireless, is more about a fundamental change in behavior, as the Internet often is given credit for, or simply is a newer way to do what kids do anyway: hang out, chat, swap music and share interests.

Of course, when kids grow up, they’re likely use the Internet in ways and at the usage rates that grown ups do now, probably even more so. But conventional wisdom that says kids today are spending substantially less time out and about, hanging at the mall or McDonald’s or kicking around the park, might not be entirely accurate.