28 September 2005
US teenagers "couldn't live without" Internet access, recent research has revealed.
More teenagers surveyed by Yahoo and OMD said they would rather live without TV and their mobile phones than the Internet.
The survey also found that one of the key trends among teenager Internet users during the last ten years is their need to personal everything they do on the Internet.
The age-old teenage need to feel part of the gang and to stand out from the crowd is being reflected in their use of the web.
Teenagers are personalising everything from selecting website wallpaper to their downloaded music play lists and TV programmes.
The Internet is also providing a place for teenagers to group together either in chat rooms or playing web-based games.
"They're really personalising everything. They love this new digital media opportunity because it allows them to be their own DJs, their own TV programmers - indeed, their own web designers, " Dan Drath, the vice president of the Teenage Research Unlimited group, told MediaDaily News.
Today's teenager has opened and continues to fuel a whole market of web-based applications with personalisation options.
However, the downside to these developments is that teenagers are now able to avoid being targeted by advertisements intended to draw them to new technology. For instance, commercial radio is suffering from teenagers preferring to download music.
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