A New York Times article today describes a dramatic drop in blogging among the young. By "young," the NYT is referring to 12 to 17 year olds. Fourteen percent have blogs - a decline of half from 2006, when about 30 percent of that age group who used the Internet had blogs.
At the same time, older age groups are blogging more. As the NYT describes,
"Among 34-to-45-year-olds who use the Internet, the percentage who blog increased six points, to 16 percent, in 2010 from two years earlier... Blogging by 46-to-55-year-olds increased five percentage points, to 11 percent, while blogging among 65-to-73-year-olds rose two percentage points, to 8 percent."
The NYT concludes that the young, discouraged by lack of readers, are shifting to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr., which is mainly images and doesn't involve as much writing. By contrast, "serious" bloggers are into more serious analysis and using several mediums to generate traffic.
I had no clue so many teens were blogging, or that so many people in general were blogging. Maybe people like to write more than you'd guess, given educators' deep concern over reading test scores. Then again, statistics are tricky. What do you think?
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