Poll: Teens And Technology

This CBS News/New York Times poll, conducted among teens age 13 to 17, finds that today's teenagers are no strangers to advanced personal communication and entertainment technologies such as home computers, the Internet, email, pagers and cell phones, and home video game systems.

Nearly two-thirds have access to a computer at home. Almost half surf the Web regularly, and just as many use home video game systems. More than two in five teens have their own email address. Smaller numbers also report having their own telephone number, pager, and cell phone.

COMPUTER AND THE INTERNET

Sixty-three percent of teens report regularly using a computer at home (19 percent say they have their own computer in their own room). Forty-eight percent say they regularly go online from their home computer, and 42 percent say they have their own e-mail address.

Although access to a home computer among teenagers has remained at approximately the same level during the past one year or so, the percentage of teens now having access to the Internet from home has increased from 3 percent a year-and-a-half ago to 48 percent now.

HOME INTERNET AND COMPUTER ACCESS

The online teen popuation is about the same among both boys and girls and does not show much difference by age or urbanity. However, there are income and racial gaps in home computer access. Three quarters of teens from families with annual household incomes of $50,000 or higher have a home computer, but less than half of teens from families who make $15,000 a year or less do. Sixty-six percent of white teens say they have a computer at home, compared with 54 percent of black teens, and 55 percent of Hispanic teens.

USE HOME COMPUTER

According to the teens themselves, most parents don't set rules about the amount of time they can spend on the home computer. Sixty-two percent of teens with home computer access report their parents don't set any rules regarding the time they can spend on the computers. (Parents of younger teens are more likely to set rule on their kids' computer hours than those of older teens.) For the 37 percent whose parents do have rules on computer hours, about one in three say they have broken the rules.

TEEN CONNECTIVITY

Some teenagers go even further in setting up their "personal communications network." One in every five teens have their own pager; nearly as many have their own telephone number. Every one in ten has a cell phone. Older teens are more likely than younger teens to be owners of those advanced devices: teens 16 and 17 years old are twice as likely to have a pager, and nearly three times as likely to use a cell phone than teens 13 to 15 years old.

BEING CONNECTED

Proportionally more adults than teens have both pagers and cell phones. But teen computer and Internet access is about at the same level as the total adult population's.

ENTERTAINMENT

The computer, though widely accessible, cannot compete with television set on ownership among teens. While 19% of American teenagers say they have their own computer in their room, nearly two-thirds say they have their own television set.

WHAT'S IN TEENS' ROOMS...

Forty-seven percent of teenagers regularly use video game system at home about the same number as teenagers going online from home. But unlike the online teen population which shows virtually no gender difference, boys are twice as likely as girls to use home video game systems. Sixty-three percent of teenage boys say they use home video game systems, compared with 31 percent of teenage girls.

REGULARLY USE AT HOME...