Pew Social Networking Sites Study

Although the Pew study [pdf] on social networking sites has been mentioned all over the place, I would be remiss in not mentioning it here. For one reason, it has important information for librarians (55% of online teens use social networks). For the second reason, because OCLC will publish a complementary report in the spring.

Pew surveyed 935 teens aged 12-17 in the United States. The survey conducted for OCLC included over 5700 participants 14 and older in six countries: US, Canada, UK, France, Germany and Japan.

Of course, we expect to see similarities in the data...the addition of countries outside the US in our survey will be interesting. Will there be cultural differences? We expect there will be but don't know where.

Lee Rainie from Pew and I will be on the same track at the Computers in Libraries conference in April, speaking about our studies.