Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

2.21.11 | Blogging is losing its luster among teenagers and young adults, but the decline seems connected to the growth of micro-blogging platforms, such as Twitter and Tumblr, and the popularity of Facebook as the go-to place to share videos and photos, as well as news and opinions.

In short, young people are communicating online just as much, if not more, but they’re doing so in less formally structured spaces.

According to a recent survey from Pew Internet & American Life Project:

* 14 percent of online teens now say they blog, down from 28 percent of teen internet users in 2006. This decline is also reflected in the lower incidence of teen commenting on blogs within social networking websites; 52 percent of teen social network users report commenting on friends’ blogs, down from the 76 percent who did so in 2006.

* By comparison, the prevalence of blogging within the overall adult internet population has remained steady in recent years. Pew Internet Project surveys since 2005 have consistently found that roughly 1 in 10 online adults maintain a personal online journal or blog.

“The act of telling your story and sharing part of your life with somebody is alive and well — even more so than at the dawn of blogging,” Lee Rainie, director of the Internet and American Life Project, told The New York Times in a story published this past weekend on the shift toward platforms that encourage “small talk.” Verne G. Kopytoff writes:

The blurring of lines is readily apparent among users of Tumblr. Although Tumblr calls itself a blogging service, many of its users are unaware of the description and do not consider themselves bloggers — raising the possibility that the decline in blogging by the younger generation is merely a semantic issue.

Kim Hou, a high school senior in San Francisco, said she quit blogging months ago, but acknowledged that she continued to post fashion photos on Tumblr. “It’s different from blogging because it’s easier to use,” she said. “With blogging you have to write, and this is just images. Some people write some phrases or some quotes, but that’s it.”

The effect is seen on the companies providing the blogging platforms. Blogger, owned by Google, had fewer unique visitors in the United States in December than it had a year earlier — a 2 percent decline, to 58.6 million — although globally, Blogger’s unique visitors rose 9 percent, to 323 million.

A separate Pew survey notes that younger adults are leading the move toward smaller, more flexible media devices and are using their cell phones more than any other group for online access, including email and gaming. This, too, would seem to have an effect on longer blog writing and commenting—it’s trickier to write long-form posts without a keyboard.

The study, “Generations and Their Gadgets,” released Feb. 3, found that 95 percent of millennials (age 18-34) own cell phones, with the generation X demographic (35-46) not far behind at 92 percent. Among younger and older boomers the numbers are still close: 86 percent of those age 47-56 own cell phones, as do 84 percent of those age 57-65. The drop off occurs more among older generations: 68 percent of those age 66-74 and 48 percent of those age 75 and older own cell phones.

Among all generations, the two most popular non-voice activities are taking pictures (done by 76 percent of cell phone owners) and texting (72 percent).

A higher percentage of millennials own iPods/MP3 players than any other demographic, but millennials and Gen X are tied when it comes to game consoles: 63 percent of each demographic owns a gaming device. And millennials are the only generation that is more likely to own a laptop computer or netbook than a desktop. More than two-thirds (70 percent) own a laptop, compared with 57 percent who own a desktop.

Here’s a good graphic with a breakdown of adults in each generation and the devices they own.