Selected news stories about the Pew Internet Project and articles citing our data.
IM increasingly popular with US teenagers
7/29/2005 | 
Coverage
Ciara O'Brien, Electricnews.net
'"Once heralded as the internet's "killer app", e-mail is being shunned by younger users in favour of instant messaging to keep in contact with their friends.
Three-quarters of US teenagers contacted for the Pew Internet & American Life survey admitted to using instant messaging, with the average amount of time spent using the technology each day increasing in the past four years.
The perception of e-mail as a tool for communicating with "adults" such as teachers and institutions like schools, may be contributing to its decline in popularity among younger users. In contrast, IM is seen as an everyday way to communicate with a number of friends, where teens can use buddy icons or customise the look and feel of the communications to express themselves. The use of the "away" message -- to signal when a user is away from the PC but still connected to the network -- may also appeal to younger internet users.
"Away messages, in effect, maintain a 'presence' in this virtual IM space, even when a teen isn't directly tied to a technology," says Mary Madden, research specialist and co-author of the report. "Away messages aren't just telegraphing location, but may include any type of information, such as in-jokes, quotes, coded messages or even contact information."
Many news sites move articles into data bases after a period of time and then offer them for sale, in the process changing the URLs that link to them. Or they require registration. Thus, we provide a link to the front page of the news website and the information necessary to find the story on that site, rather than a direct link to the article.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
