Summary
37% of internet users ages 12-17 participate in video chats with others using applications such as Skype, Googletalk or iChat. Girls are more likely than boys to have such chats.
27% of internet-using teens 12-17 record and upload video to the internet. One major difference between now and 2006 is that online girls are just as likely these days to upload video as online boys.
13% of internet-using teens stream video live to the internet for other people to watch.
Social media users are much more likely than those who do not use social media to engage in all three video behaviors studied.
Some 95% of teens 12-17 use the internet, according to a survey of 799 teens conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project between April 19 and July 14, 2011. In that study, the teens were asked about a number of online behaviors and the results for video-oriented activities are reported here.
Video chatting
37% of online teens have video chat conversations with others.
Nearly 2 in 5 online teens (37%) say they have video chatted with someone else using applications such as Skype, iChat or Googletalk.
Girls are more likely than boys to video chat.
Online girls are more likely to report video chatting than boys, with 42% of girls who use the internet saying they have video chatted compared with about a third (33%) of boys.
Teenagers of different ages are equally likely to video chat.
Some 34% of online 12-13 year olds use video chat, as do 39% of 14-17 year olds. The differences by age are not statistically significant.
White youth are more likely to video chat than Latino youth.
White teens who use the internet are more likely to report video chatting than online Latino teens; 41% of white teens do so, as do 28% of Latino youth. There are no statistically significant differences between online black youth and either white or Latino youth in video chatting.
Youth from higher income and higher education families are more likely to video chat than youth from lower income and education households.
Online teens from families with the lowest levels of parental education – where a parent has not received a high school diploma – are much less likely than others to video chat with just 14% of teens in those families video chatting, compared with 40% of teens with parents with higher levels of education.
In a similar vein, teen internet users from higher income families are more likely to video chat than lower income teens. Of online teens from families earning $75,000 or more annually, 46% use video chat, while 32% of online teens from families earning under $50,000 annually use these services.
Frequent internet users, texters and social media users are all more likely to video chat than others.
Some 43% of daily internet users video chat, compared with 31% of weekly users and 1% of those who use the internet less often.
Our survey found that 77% of all teens ages 12-17 have cell phones and 97% of cell users (or 75% of all teens) can send and receive texts. Teens who text are also more likely to use video chatting, with 40% of texting teens chatting compared with 27% of non-texters. Other social media communicators also show similar patterns.
Some 77% of all teens–or 80% of the internet-using teens–say they use social networking sites such as Facebook; 16% of online teens use Twitter. Teens who use Facebook and Twitter are more likely to use video chat, with 41% of Facebook users chatting (compared with 25% of non-users) and 60% of Twitter users using video chat (compared with 33% of non-Twitter users.)
