Current technology trends for teens?
May 6, 2013 5:58 AM   Subscribe

Parents, teachers, and those who work with youth: can you give me a heads up about what websites you have noticed your teens using?

I'm doing a workshop on the topic, and while I have some data about what types of technology is being used (i.e. phone internet vs. texting vs. laptop use etc) from the Pew Internet and Family Life Project, they don't have the specifics of where teens do go on the internet.
posted by Stewriffic to Computers & Internet (13 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
My middle-school-aged daughter and her friends communicate online almost exclusively via Instagram captions. It seems deeply bizarre to me, but then, I guess it is supposed to.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:05 AM on May 6, 2013


Response by poster: Just occurred to me that knowing what apps are used on smartphones would be good info, too!
posted by Stewriffic at 6:10 AM on May 6, 2013


My just-turned 14-year-old daughter and her friends (8th grade) use ooVoo as their preferred video chat app. I have no idea why.

I also have a feeling that many of these answers are going to be: "my son/daughter and their friends use X...it is bizarre/I have no idea why."
posted by kuanes at 6:12 AM on May 6, 2013


Our oldest girl is quite the fan of pinterest these days, via an iPod Touch or Kindle Fire. She and her friends use facetime quite a bit to chat. The Netflix and Facebook apps on both platforms get a ton of use, too (she and our oldest son have discovered Dr. Who and are devouring episodes online).
posted by jquinby at 6:14 AM on May 6, 2013


Whatsapp
Tumblr
Snapchat
9gag
Skype
Facebook messaging
(I'm 18)
posted by dinosaurprincess at 6:18 AM on May 6, 2013 [5 favorites]


Tumblr (daughters 15 and 18)
posted by firelizard at 6:23 AM on May 6, 2013 [1 favorite]


Facebook and YouTube remain the sites that we most often have children using to bully each other or arrange trouble at school, in my district. Tumblr too, but not as often for bullying sorts of things (more often for self-expression, which we don't really deal with).

Several of them figured out they could use a yahoo chat protocol to get around the school network's refusal to allow sites where you can chat, so that was briefly extremely popular, but I assume now that that's been closed off they've all moved on to some other chatting-under-the-radar system.

We've also found, incidentally over time, that there are a shocking number of parents who don't realize that the iPod Touch can be a communication device. They get them so their kids "don't have phones" (or they take the phone away when the kid is grounded but leave the iPod because it's "just for music and games") and don't seem to realize the kids can use them to text chat or video chat any time they can access wifi!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:27 AM on May 6, 2013 [2 favorites]


Constant use: Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram
Occasional use: Texting, Keek, Skype
Reluctant/Annoying necessity use: Facebook
Ew no: Google+

(Source: almost 14yo and her friends)
posted by mothershock at 6:28 AM on May 6, 2013


Facebook, Tumblr, Skype
posted by Shoggoth at 7:33 AM on May 6, 2013


I don't work with kids, but I have a Tumblr and I cross paths with annoying tweens and teens constantly. (That said, I heard the fastest growing demographic for Tumblr is people in their 30s, but perhaps that's because the teens are already there. The site is filled with teens. And data analytics I have seen show +that while on Facebook, you get the most traffic on a post during the day -- I assume because people use Facebook at work during the day -- but on Tumblr, the highest traffic is at night, which I figured was because of kids using it.) The teens also seem to think their lives are interesting enough to have Instagrams and Twitters as they are all over it. I have also heard as far as apps go, Snapchat is becoming really popular with teens.
posted by AppleTurnover at 9:58 AM on May 6, 2013


This is slightly on the older end of the curve, but my first-year college students are all about Snapchat and Tumblr right now.
posted by bizzyb at 10:04 AM on May 6, 2013


High school senior sister and friends: Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Youtube, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest.
posted by brieche at 3:57 PM on May 6, 2013


Vine - 6 second selfies.
posted by at at 10:41 AM on May 7, 2013


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