Kids These Days and Their Darn Internet

Working with the Congressional Internet Caucus, 463 has helped pull together another fun, yet, hopefully insightful, Internet perception poll with Zogby International and is releasing the results tomorrow.

You remember that when we did our last Internet related poll with Zogby in December, we found that more than 80% viewed the average 12-year-old as smarter than their Congress person on the Internet.  We also learned that there is great skepticism that the next Bill Gates will come from America.

This poll finds that 18-24-year olds feel remarkably different about the Internet and its implication than age groups older than them.   For example:

• Only 35.6 percent of 18-24 year-olds consider someone posting a picture of them in a swimsuit to be an invasion of their privacy, compared to 65.5 percent of other respondents.

• Only 19.6 percent of 18-24 year-olds consider their dating profile to be an invasion of their privacy, compared to 54.6 percent of other respondents.

• 45.4 percent of 18-24 year-olds say they, or someone they know, has broken up with someone using email or a text message. That contrasts with just 7.6 percent of all the other age groups polled.

Yet, when considering what ages should be able to use different Internet-enabled applications, the younger set is even more conservative than their elders....

• Over 75 percent of those polled said a child should wait until they are 13 or older before getting email access (and 40.7 percent of them said the person should be at least over the age of 16 or wait until an adult).   18-24 year olds were the most cautious:  Nearly 29% of the sample said that kids shouldn't get email until 16 to 18.

• A whopping 65.6 percent of all respondents said access to social networking sites should be restricted until the age of 16 or adulthood.  More than 75 percent of 18-24 olds agreed.

Other findings:

In good news for Al Gore, nearly 32 percent of 18-24 year olds believes the former Vice President deserves credit for inventing the Internet, toppling one of the original founders of the Internet — Vint Cerf. That compares with just 9.8 percent of other age groups.

One in four 18-24 years olds admitted that they missed a deadline on an important project because they chose to surf the Internet instead. Only 7.8 percent of other respondents fessed up to doing that.

When faced with having to give up television, radio or the Internet, 18-24 year-olds opted to hold on to their Internet at all costs. This demographic decided to jettison the TV first, followed by the radio. While the Internet was spared by 18-24 year-olds, it was the first choice to be tossed by all other older respondents, who’d rather keep their television and radio over the Internet.

Finally, the Internet is still not viewed as the best place to meet someone. When asked if they had a 20-year-old daughter what would they least want their daughter to bring home as a boyfriend, respondents said they would least want it to be a guy she met on the Internet – even over someone she met at a bar or at a Star Trek convention. Of those polled, 31.9 percent considered the Internet boyfriend to be the worst, followed by a guy she met in a bar (22.3 percent) and then a Trekkie (16.1 percent).

The Zogby poll surveyed 1,200 adults and was conducted from 1/24-1/26. 

Want more detail?  It's all yours.  Below are the cross-tabs to all the results.

Comments

[Cheap Escorts]

somehow located your blog while searching for a post for a class, but I have to say I'm glad I found it ...will definately subscribe sometime.

[Oralee GolubRubye HeeterPeter LochridgeCathrine Santa]

somehow found your blog while browsing for a article for a class, but I have to say I'm glad I found it ...will definately subscribe sometime.

[floor jack]

You're lucky to have such a supportive sister. Best of luck to you in what you're going through.

[hydraulic jack]

I'll trade you ted's aviators for a mike jackson wig; okay, okay, I'll throw in the nail clippers and 2 pages of the 15th manifesto.

[jack stands]

I can't imagine he'd have anything of real value considering how he lived...And the people who would purchase mementos of his evil due to some perverse interest or to amaze the folks at the bar b que next Sunday are just inviting those demons in.

[jack stand]

have often wondered how much righteous outrage against Vietnam there would have been by those bright young college students had there been no draft and they were not threatened with the possibility of maybe ending up over there.

[Maxie Abreu]

That contrasts with just 7.6 percent of all the other age groups polled.