Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Twitter Users Are Not Using Twitter

A couple of news tidbits seem to indicate that Twitter isn't very popular as a social networking vehicle...

10% Of Twitter Users Account For 90% Of Twitter Activity
A new Harvard Business Review study reveals that the 10% of Twitter users account for over 90% of Twitter messages sent. What's it mean? Bill Heil and Mikolaj Piskorski, who wrote up the study for HBR, conclude: "This implies that Twitter's resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network."

The HBR report says half of Twitter users tweet less than once every 74 days and that among Twitter users, "the median number of lifetime tweets per user is one."

Source: The Business Insider
http://www.businessinsider.com/10-of-twitter-users-account-for-90-of-twitter-activity-2009-6

Millennials Among Those Who Don't Appreciate Twitter
Millennials -- 18- to-26-year-olds -- don't see value in Twitter, although they spend hours daily texting friends and communicating on social networks in real time, according to a study released from the Participatory Marketing Network (PMN).

The study suggests that only 22% of Millennials use Twitter, the real-time microblogging site that allows posts of up to 140 characters. Of those young people who use Twitter, 85% said they follow friends, 54% follow celebrities, 29% follow family, and 29% follow companies.

Source: Online Media Daily
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=107081

Twitter Users Not Sticking Around

While Twitter (the micro-blogging service where posts are limited to 140 characters) is seeing a massive influx of new users, a majority of them aren't sticking around. Perhaps it's a case of too much useless information being posted with users growing fatigued at the effort required to keep up with posting and reading others' comments.

More than 60 percent of Twitter users have stopped using the micro-blogging service a month after joining, according to Nielsen Online research released on Tuesday.

"Twitter has enjoyed a nice ride over the last few months, but it will not be able to sustain its meteoric rise without establishing a higher level of user loyalty," said David Martin, Nielsen Online's vice president for primary research.

Martin, in a post on the company blog, said that more than 60 percent of Twitter users fail to return the following month.

"Or in other words, Twitter's audience retention rate, or the percentage of a given month's users who come back the following month, is currently about 40 percent," he said.

Source: Yahoo!Tech / AFP
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/afp/20090428/tc_afp/usitcompanyinternettwitternielsen

Teens on Social Networks

eMarketer estimates that 15.5 million U.S. teen internet users (ages 12-17), or 75%, will use social networking websites in 2009. By 2013, the estimate grows to 17.9 million, or 79% of online teens.

Teens use social networking sites primarily for staying in touch, making plans, finding new friends and flirting.

Still, the social networking experience is not always positive. Teens understand that information posted to social networking sites can come back to haunt them. Over 60% of those surveyed acknowledged that the things friends wrote in their profiles could harm their careers. In addition, 48% said they could be embarrassed by what they themselves wrote, and 38% said they regretted some of the items that had appeared on their pages already.

Source: eMarketer
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007041

Facebook Reaches 200 Million Users

According to the company, Facebook, one of the most popular social networking sites on the planet, added its 200 millionth user on April 8, 2009.

To mark the occasion, Silicon Alley Insider noted that if Facebook were a country, it would be the fifth-largest in the world after China, India, the US and Indonesia.

The US had more Facebook users than any other country. However, the largest concentration of users was in the Eastern US and Western Europe.

From January to March 2009, people ages 26 to 44 made up the fastest-growing segment of the US Facebook population, and other countries will undoubtedly follow that path.

Source: eMarketer
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007034

Study Has Mostly Good News About Online Predator Risk

The stereotypical online predator just might be a myth, according to new research released by the Crimes Against Children Research Center. Of note, there was no evidence that online predators used personal information obtained from social networking websites to stalk or abduct unsuspecting victims. Rather, most underage sex crimes involving online predators (who were arrested) were with adolescents that knew they were communicating with older adults who wanted sex, and willingly went to meet the offenders face-to-face.

The news from a new online predator study is mostly good. Researchers from the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center (CCRC) found only a modest increase in the number of adults arrested for solicitation of actual minors, which could be accounted for by the growth in the number of youth Internet users.

In 2006 there were 615 arrests for soliciting a real child, compared with 508 in 2000 and during that interval the percentage of young people using the Internet grew from 73 percent to 93 percent. The study defined young people as ages 17 and below. (To put that into some kind of perspective, there were more than 25 million 12- to 17-year-olds in the U.S. in 2006 based on U.S. Census Bureau data as reported on ChildStats.gov.)

The time span covered by this new study coincides with the advent of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, which weren't around in 2000. And considering the numbers, it should help dispel the hysteria about the so-called predator dangers on social-networking sites.

The study did reveal a very significant number of sting operation arrests in which the offender approached an undercover police officer posing as a minor. That's a crime and, says CCRC Director David Finkelhor, these sting operations may have played a major role in helping to reduce the number of actual victims by taking predators off the street and deterring others from even trying.

The study found that during 2006, 87 percent of the arrests involved solicitation of undercover cops, and 13 percent of the cases involved actual minors. To put this into perspective, online predator arrests that year accounted for only 1 percent of all arrests for sex crimes against children.

Source: CNET News
http://news.cnet.com/8301-19518_3-10208135-238.html

To read the report of the National Juvenile Online Victimization study from the Crimes Against Children Research Center, click here.

Facebook Offers Control To Users

Facebook recently issued reassurances that ownership of data belongs to users, which is a step in the right direction. However, parents should still operate under the general assumption that once their kids post data online it may stay in cyberspace forever.

Facebook has responded to criticism over the way it handles user data by handing over control to its users.

Members of the social network will have comment and voting rights over the firm's future policies regarding how the site is governed.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg said the aim was to "open up Facebook so that users can participate meaningfully in our policies and our future".

Mr Zuckerberg admitted that the recent changes to the website's terms and conditions had sparked a "firestorm".

Users had complained that it appeared Facebook was claiming ownership of their data - even if they delete their accounts.

The founder said: "We do not own user data, they [users] own it. We never intended to give that impression and feel really bad that we did."

Source: BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7913289.stm

Facebook Reverts to Old Terms of Service (for Now)

On February 4, Facebook updated its terms of service and not many people noticed (myself included). Inserted into the new terms of service was wording that granted Facebook the ownership of everything anyone posts on the site, forever. What this essentially meant was that even if a user deletes content, or cancels an account, Facebook would still keep and have access to all of the content that had been posted to the site (along with the right to use in anyway it sees fit, including selling it to others).

In the days following the change in Facebook's terms of service, enough opposition arose to motivate a return to the previous version. At least for now. Facebook still intends to change its terms of service and it is simply a wait and see, until they try again.

At minimum, this provides parents with another opportunity to dialogue with their kids to remind them that what they post online is permanent. It's also a good reminder for adults. As my own list of friends on Facebook increases and as I view others' posts, I frequently come across content that makes me think, "Too Much Information." The recent Facebook fad of writing "25 Random Things" about yourself plays into danger of posting some really stupid things, which people might regret 5, 10 or 20 years from now, and find impossible to remove.

Sources: Multiple, including:
Ypulse

VentureBeat

Consumerist

Time

New York Times

MySpace: 90,000 Sex Offenders Removed From Site

What do you call removing 90,000 sex offenders from MySpace? A good start. Perhaps we'll hear what Facebook is doing about the problem sometime?

About 90,000 sex offenders have been identified and removed from the social networking Web site MySpace, company and law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

The number was nearly double what MySpace officials originally estimated last year, said North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, who along with Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has led efforts to make social networking Web sites safer for young users.

Cooper said he wasn't surprised by the updated numbers, and demanded that MySpace and rival online networking site Facebook — which claim to have more than 280 million users combined — do more to protect children and teenagers.

"These sites were created for young people to communicate with each other. Predators are going to troll in these areas where they know children are going to be," Cooper said. "That's why these social networking sites have the responsibility to make their sites safe for children."

The attorneys general received agreements last year from MySpace and Facebook to push toward making their sites safer. Both sites implemented dozens of safeguards, including finding better ways to verify user's ages, banning convicted sex offenders from using the sites and limiting the ability of older users to search members under 18.

Blumenthal, who received MySpace's updated numbers Tuesday through a subpoena, said the information "provides compelling proof that social networking sites remain rife with sexual predators." A preliminary number of sex offenders found on Facebook was "substantial," but he said the company has yet to respond to a recent subpoena.

Source: Associated Press
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hQO9I5JWIt6izbZ955ohEyKuAKXAD964FOGO0

New Illness: Facebook Depression?

This may sound like a joke, but it's not: researchers at Stony Brook University in New York have found that too much Facebook usage can leave you more prone to anxiety and depression...that is, if you're a teenage girl. In a study, a group of 13-year old girls were evaluated by psychology professor Dr. Joanne Davila and her colleague, Lisa Starr. A year later, the researchers followed up with the girls, testing them for depressive symptoms.

The results of their tests, recently published in The Journal of Adolescence, showed that the girls who talked with their friends online had significantly higher levels of depression. Says Dr. Davila, "Texting, instant messaging and social networking make it very easy for adolescents to become even more anxious, which can lead to depression."

Apparently, the problem with these electronic tools du jour is that they allowed the girls to discuss the same problems over and over again. This caused them to get stuck obsessing over a particular emotional setback, unable to move forward.

Turning a critical eye to this research, though, we have to wonder: is it really Facebook and IM that's getting the girls down? Or is it just the nature of teenage girls to talk themselves to tears? We already know that teenage girls engage in excessive talking and rumination...and they've been doing so for years. It's just the means by which they communicate these days that has changed.

Years ago, those same girls may have spent hours on the phone or writing out their thoughts in secret "slambooks." Even longer ago, they probably sat at their desks writing out long, emotional letters. For many girls, chatting about or dwelling on their problems is just a part of growing up.

Even Dr. Davila seemed to notice that it's not necessarily the medium through which the chatter tasks place that's the issue - it's the amount of discussion that leads to the feelings of depression.

Source: ReadWriteWeb
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/new_illness_facebook_depression.php

No Easy Answer for Protecting Kids Online

I'm not surprised by the results of this study. While it's reasonable to advocate that Internet and social networking providers keep refining security procedures, parents need to be a proactive partner with their kids in attempting to keep them safe online. Even then, there's no iron-clad guarantee of a completely safe Internet.

There is no simple technology solution to protect children from bullying, pornography, sexual predation and other online threats, a new study says.

The highly anticipated report -- results of a year-long study ordered by 49 state attorneys general -- found that "a combination of technologies, in concert with parental oversight, education, social services, law enforcement, and sound policies by social-network sites and service providers, may assist in addressing specific problems that minors face online," according to a draft of the report reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The report also found that the risks that minors face on the Web -- notably bullying and harassment by peers -- aren't very different from those they face in the real world.

The 278-page report is a boon for the Web companies, which have long argued that technology isn't the sole solution to the dangers kids face online. It is a disappointment for those in favor of stricter technological controls, such as age-verification and filtering tools.

Attorney General Roy Cooper of North Carolina said in an interview Tuesday: "Clearly, the main responsibility is on parents." But he added that "because technology companies are providing this gathering space and encouraging children to come, they have a duty to put in place technologies that can help protect kids."

Source: Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123187498732078111-email.html