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The report has revealed that young people in the US spend the maximum amount
of time, on an average, each week with the Internet (16.7 hours)
compared to other forms of media.
The results of the study were announced last week at "Born
to be Wired: Understanding the First Wired Generation," Yahoo!'s
conference for marketers, which is designed to further explore and
understand the media consumption patterns of teens and young adults,
and how marketers can best communicate with this group.
The survey was carried out by Harris Interactive and Teenage Research
Unlimited amongst 2,618 people between the ages of 13 and 24 in
June for Yahoo!.
Carat discovered that teens spend 13.6 hours each week watching
TV and only six hours a week reading books or magazines for pleasure.
Additionally they spend 12 hours listening to the radio and 7.7
hours talking on the phone.
The reason that the youth gave for this propensity towards the
Net: it provides them control like no other medium does, especially
considering the fact that users can personalise their experience
online.
Apparently, teenagers are not just pfaffing around online. A study
by comScore Media Metrix determined at the end of 2002 showed that
teens between the ages of 12 and 17 spend a gargantuan 41.5 minutes
on sites with some corporate presence. This compares to the average
of 26.6 minutes each day they spend on instant messaging (IM) applications,
24.4 minutes each day on game sites.
The survey by Carat and Yahoo revealed that teenagers are using
the Internet as a "hub" -- or primary media -- while other
media are being used as a starting point for the online experience.
It additionally disclosed that today's teens and young adults are
not overwhelmed by the abundance of media choices like cable stations,
networks, magazines and radio, but rather feel empowered by it and
are able to multi-task -- using more than one form of media at a
time -- more than any other generation.
"It is so important for marketers to understand the sea change
that is taking place in media consumption habits. Nowhere is this
more pronounced than in the teen segments," Carat Interactive
president Sarah Fay is reported to have told the rapt audience at
the Yahoo conference.
She added: "This study gives us insight that helps not only
to determine the appropriate media mix for reaching teens, but more
importantly the role of each medium, and how the dots connect within
that mix. This new information will guide us into the future as
consumer media habits continue to morph toward more diverse and
fragmented mediums."
With computers becoming increasingly ubiquitous in Indian homes
and cybercafes spreading far and wide, it is quite likely that studies
amongst India's young people will reveal that their consumption
of the WWW is also going up.
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