Responsible social networking

More than half (55%) of US 12-to-17-year-olds use social sites, and 48% use them at least daily, according to just-released research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. And echoing the basic message of an academic paper given last week (see this news item), Pew's findings should ease some concerns: 66% of teens who have created a profile say it's not publicly visible and - Internet News reports - "most teens use the sites to map their offline social networks in an online environment – 91% of all social-networking teens say they use the sites to stay in touch with friends they see frequently [not to meet strangers], while only 49% use the sites to make new friends" (parents and teens should probably work on bringing that number down further, unless the "new friends" are peers and friends of friends). A clearer picture of how teens use the social Web has emerged from this and several other studies released in the past month. For more on all this, please click to this week's issue of my newsletter.