Confident Teens Spend 13.3 Hours a Week Online

Today’s teens are confident, ambitious, and optimistic. That’s what the Horatio Alger Assocation learned from its yearly State of Our Nation’s Youth survey.

You can download a summary or the entire survey for yourself here. But here are some highlights:

Teens spend more time on the Internet (an average of 13.3 hours/week) than watching TV (9.8 hours/week): “Indeed, 29% of students report spending 10 or more hours per week online and 15% of students say they are online more than 20 hours per week.” The less time online, the better their grades: A and B students spend an average of 10.2 hours a week online.

And what are they doing online? Guess:

Students spend nearly 6.2 additional hours each week using the Internet to browse social networking sites and 7.1 hours using the Internet for entertainment. Putting those together, students spend 13.3 hours online each week keeping up with friends and entertaining themselves and just 4.5 hours each week online for homework.

According to this survey, 46% of teens spend time on Facebook, and, of those who spend time there:

79% say they use it primarily to keep in touch with friends. Twenty-one percent (21%) of teens use it to make new friends. Other uses include finding and planning social events (14%), learning about new music or movies (12%), and bringing up the rear is finding help with homework (6%).

Barely half (46%) of teens report that their parents have rules about how they use the Internet.

As far as college is concerned, 70% of teens say they plan to attend a four-year college or university; 23% plan to pursue some other kind of training after high school. Top career choices include doctor or surgeon (10%), teacher or professor (8%), nurse/medical assistant (6%), arts or entertainment (5%), or lawyer or attorney )5%).

The survey was conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates on behalf of the Horatio Alger Association with 13 to 19 year-olds who identified themselves as ninth through twelfth graders.

Posted by Michael Stoner
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