NEW YORK: Today’s teens prefer making friends on the World Wide Web and rely heavily on the Internet for maintaining friendships and ties. A new study has also revealed that teens are much less likely to make friends offline these days.
The Pew study also revealed that teens were also highly unlikely to meet their online friends in the real world. The study surveyed 1,060 teens, aged between ages 13 and 17, out of whom 77 percent revealed that they never met their online friends in person.
Fifty-seven percent of teens said that they have made at least one friend online. 29 percent said that they have made over five friends online.
Pew’s associate director of research, Amanda Lenhart, said, “We found the Internet is really a critical part of how teens make and sustain friendship.” She added that this also disproves some common adult assumptions like teens are only just wasting time on the Internet.
Eight in every ten said that Instagram and Facebook helped them in becoming more deeply involved with their friends’ lives. Three-fourths of all respondents claimed that social media helped them in sharing the feelings of their friends.
The study also revealed that girls rely a lot more on social media for communication than boys. They are also more likely to make new friends through online search and message posting.
Girls are also more likely to form and be part of online communities for discussing matters of interest. At the same time, they are a lot more likely to unfriend and block people post break-up.
For boys, making friends while playing online games is a lot more common. In contrast, a mere 13 percent of all girls claimed making new friends while playing online games.
Also, boys, in general, have a greater likelihood of making online friends than girls. Statistics revealed that 61 percent of all boys made online friends as compared to 52 percent girls.
Some 84 percent boys felt more deeply connected to their friends playing online games together in contrast to 62 percent girls.
Social media also exerts psychological pressure on teens. 40 percent felt compelled to post content that makes them look good while 39 percent felt pressured to post popular content.
