In a speech at the Kaiser Family Foundation last March, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) warned that "media in kids' lives is a moving target." A new survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project suggests that it's the kids themselves who are moving and dominating.
According to the study, 57 percent of teens who are online (and 50 percent of all teens) have created content for the Internet, meaning that they've authored a blog, created a Web page, shared original work over the Web, or remixed existing work online. "Teens are not content to consume online content passively," researchers explain.
The results also suggest that teens are picking up valuable technological skills through their consumption and manipulation of media. The most tech-savvy among those surveyed were teenagers who author their own weblogs. Leading the pack of bloggers? A group once thought to be left behind in the tech boom: older girls. A quarter of online girls between 15 and 17 blog, compared with 15 percent of boys their age.