Blogging loses popularity among teens

What was just a couple of years ago the hottest trend in communication now seems to be obsolete in one category of age. Teenagers, probably ranking first in number of Internet users, have shown less and less interest in blogging ever since social interaction websites and mobile technologies have developed to a greater extent.

The latest study which has indicated a decrease in teens’ blogs was released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and showed that only 14% of teenagers now write or manage blogs, as opposed to the nearly double value recorded four years ago, when bloggers ranked in the 25^th percentile within the same age category. 

One might argue that teen-agers simply do not boast the same creative writing skills; however, the same study revealed that, in present, only half the Internet youths, aged 12 to 17, still have the heart to comment on friends’ blogs, a diminished value from that of 2006 when more than three quarters of teenage bloggers did so.

A similar decline was observed in the middle age category, 18 to 29-year-olds, although not as significant as in their younger counterparts. And, should one look even further in blogging trends of 30-year-olds and older, we might notice something unexpected to say the least – an increase in adult bloggers by a considerable 4 percentiles, showing that 11 percent of Internet users aged 30 and above regularly maintain a blog.

All in all, there seems to be a balance behind the sudden drop in youth bloggers and a reasonable boost to adults. However, the question remains – with social networking websites constantly enlarging, what is the future of blogs requiring ample and normally coherent writing as opposed to the quick texts encountered in sites such as Facebook?