The teen market

These are some general statements I am making today after seeing a lot many websites that have statistics

• About 25 million teens use the internet and half of them say they go online every day.Mainly to check email and write something or the other on their blogs,forums or to chat for the fun of it.
  
• 51 percent of teens have access to broadband connections.This is mainly in developed countries.
  
• 81 percent of wired teens play games online, which is 52 percent higher than four years ago.This is mainly because teens get bored easily and always want something new and videogames give this experience to them-a word of caution has to be put here as games are very addicitive-a few people have actually died as a result of playing online games continuously.Everything needs to moderated and one should keep emotions under control and let off steam occassionally.
  
• More than 76 percent of teens read news online, which is really high.This true for developed countries and using technology to solve real world problems are being looked at.
  
• Approximately 10- 15 percent have made purchases online, which is really high.Ask any portal and retail firm on the net and get the statistics-the numbers could be higher.
  
• ABout 3-10 percent use the internet to get health information, which shows teens want to take care of their health and be informed about the bees and the birds.
• A large no of teens are helping parents find solutions to general problems by using the internet.This is being fuelled by companies who are encouraging students to write essays and poems on topics they like and some suggestions given by these students are actually used and spun off into products and services which are used by companies-Science and tech events in the top colleges are favorite hunting grounds for many companies.
  

Many are using services like say www.google.com/alerts to keep up with trends and keywords are usually games,filesharing,streaming video,technology, news, etc.Auction are always a hit and many a bargain are found on auction sites like eBay and Yahoo auctions.
Many teens are members of social networks too like Ryze,Orkut,linkedin etc.this fills their need for making friends all the time.

One of the best websites to get info on what teens want is www.teenresearch.com .The messages from this post are:
1)Understand teens better
2)Help teens be moderate in whatever activity and correct wherever needed.
3)Do not promote stuff that can be harmful to teens (eg violent videogames).
4)Know that the teens are powerful and influence many a decision maker.
5)Ignore teens at your own risk