A new survey on American teenagers reveals that Instagram and Snapchat are now their favorite social media platforms. Although some 91 percent use the ordinary text messaging tools on their phones, almost half of the respondents also use messaging apps like, Line, WhatsApp, and Kik on their smartphones. The study also shows that black teens are more active in these social media sites compared to their white counterparts.
The study conducted by the people from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research had a number of findings regarding social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and more, Eureka Alert reported. The survey found that 76 percent of teens aging 13 to 17 in America use Instagram, while 75 percent use Snapchat. Meanwhile, 66 percent use Facebook, 47 percent use Twitter, and less than 30 percent use LinkedIn, Twitch, and Tumblr.
The survey also reveals that more black teens are using smartphones, which coincides with past studies, and which is the reason why it's no longer a surprise that they are more active on social media and other messaging apps than white teenagers. The study found that 86 percent of black teens in America use Snapchat, which is more compared to the 71 percent of white teenagers that do. Some 40 percent of these black teenagers say they use Snapchat constantly, while 33 percent of black teens say the same thing for Instagram.
The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research senior research scientist Amanda Lenhart said that learning about how teenager use these technological devices may not be that new, but the degrees of access among various groups can have implications for education and how these tools are used, especially in the work place, Science Daily reported. The study even shows that more teenagers use tablet than desktop computers. Some 80 percent of the teens use laptops, while 89 percent use smartphones, as alternatives to desktop computers.
