In their book, Connecting to the Net.Generation, Reynol Junco and Jeanna Mastrodicasa found in a survey of 7,705 college students in the US:
• 97% own a computer
• 94% own a cell phone
• 76% use Instant Messaging and social networking sites.
• 15% of IM users are logged on 24 hours a day/7 days a week
• 34% use websites as their primary source of news
• 28% author a blog and 44% read blogs
• 97% have downloaded music and other media using peer-to-peer file sharing
• 49% regularly download music and other media using peer-to-peer file sharing
• 75% of college students have a Facebook account
• 60% own some type of portable music and/or video device such as an iPod.
The complete title of the book is Connecting to the Net.Generation: What Higher Education Professionals Need to Know About Today’s Students and was written in 2007. All the percentages are undoubtedly higher today.
Still think Facebook and Twitter and all those other ‘darn social whatever you call them things’ are just a waste of time? The X and Y generations (born 1965 – 1985) combined make up a demographic (over 100 million) larger than the baby boomer generation (born 1946 – 1964 – approx 75 million) .