Teens Using Internet to Communicate

Posted on May 15, 2005

Xanga.com is one of the most popular website on the Internet. It currently ranks 27th on Alexa.com's list of top websites. LiveJournal is a similar service to Xanga that also attracts young users. Clickondetroit.com has an article about how teens are using web services like Xanga.

As times change, so do teenagers and the way they talk. Telephones are giving way to computers and popular chat rooms and blog sites.
Xanga.com is one of the more popular blogging Web sites, Kansas City television station KMBC reported.
"It's kind of like an online diary. If something makes you mad or happy, you can just go and let it out," high school senior Jessica Hacker said.

There have been scores of articles lately reporting on blogging and web journaling by teenagers. Another article says that local authorities are concerned about teens using Xanga. These articles have just begun to break the surface about how teens are using the web. The massive Internet world rapidly connects teenager to teenager. Uses of the Internet vary greatly among teens. Some teens will display all their information in public blogs and journals including photos. While other teens are more private and use passwords to lock out all but their closest pals. And some teens have both private and public blogs and profiles. Online teens can share photographs, videos, audio files and text instantly and for free. The Web offers a combination of tools that far surpasses the use of the standard telephone and parents and authorities that try and seperate teens from these powerful tools will find it very difficult to say the least. MSNBC.com has an excerpt of a New York Times article about kids and blogging called, "My So-Called Blog" that is worth reading if you are raising a teenager and want to learn more about this topic.