U.S. college students the most wired generation yet
By Erina Lin, Wednesday 8 August 2007 at 22:03 :: Young Reader :: #380 :: rss
Of the 18 million U.S. college students heading back to campuses in the autumn, 95 percent, or 17.1 million, use the Internet at least on a monthly basis.
In the 2007 Youth Trends survey, full-time college students said they spent 19.2 hours online on average per week, one hour more than in 2006.
The question is, what are they doing online?
"On many campuses, upward of 80 percent of students use social networking sites on a regular basis," said eMarketer Senior Analyst and the author of the new report, College Students Online: A Parallel Life on Social Networks, Debra Aho Williamson. "Social networking is an essential part of campus life — so much so that even parents, professors and future employers are signing up."
Nowadays many college campuses have allowed students to deal with many things online, from course scheduling to reserving a dorm washer or dryer. "Basically, college students are always online," said Steve Jones of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. "It's so integrated into other routines, it's no longer an activity unto itself."
In fact, college students are wired in many ways:
95 percent own a mobile phone 78 percent have sent a text message in the past week 75 percent own a music player, such as an iPod 55 percent own a video game device
"Because they are connected in so many ways, college students are also adept at multitasking and integrating multiple types of information simultaneously," said Williamson. "For marketers seeking to reach and engage with this group, the challenge is to cut through the noise and make real connections."
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