Texting is gr8est communication medium for teens

A STUDY of secondary school students has confirmed the most popular means of communication for young teenagers is the text message.

The study of 7,211 secondary school students surveyed between August 2010 and last June showed almost 45% of teenage girls said they used text messaging as the main means of communicating with friends compared to just over 35% of boys. According to this year’s Census At School survey, carried out by the CSO, the second most popular method of communicating with friends was in person, with boys spending a greater proportion of their time talking in person than girls.

The study suggests MySpace, Facebook and blogging have become a routine method of communicating among young people, with over 15% of boys and girls keeping in touch using these methods. Less than 5% of teens said they use a landline to talk to friends.

Some 87% of teenagers who took part in the survey had a home computer with access to the internet, while 82% had a games console.

The survey also revealed celebrity, music, film and sport stories are the most popular articles read by teenagers.

The CSO survey shows that more than 50% of male students prefer sports themes while their female counterparts are most interested in celebrity, fashion and film themes.

Both sexes showed little interest in current affairs, politics, business, science and the environment.

The survey also revealed young people seem to be moving away from more traditional ways of accessing news. Just 9.4% of students said they use newspapers as their main source for news, just ahead of the radio. Television was the preferred choice for accessing news (39.5%) followed by the internet (19.3%).

More students got their news from talking to friends (10%). Almost 5% said they had no interest in the news.

In terms of television programmes, comedies were most popular among both sexes. When it comes to sport and soap operas, there was a sharp difference.

The next most popular programmes among both sexes were reality shows (for girls), movies, crime dramas and music videos. A higher proportion of girls surveyed said they watch cartoons more than documentaries.

As regards school subjects, female students preferred art, music and English. The male students surveyed cited PE and technology subjects as their favourites. However, the popularity of PE changed significantly depending on age, dropping from a high of 30.38% at age 14 to 15% by age 18.