U.S. teens losing interest in blogging, says study

The Pew Internet and American Life project found that fewer than one in 10 teens were using Twitter, a surprising finding given the overwhelming popularity of the micro-blogging site.

The teen portion of the study was based on a telephone survey of 800 people, aged 12 to 17, that was conducted from June to September of 2009.

Only 14 percent of teenagers who use the Internet say they kept an online journal or blog, compared with a peak of 28 percent in 2006 -- and only 8 percent were using Twitter, according to the study.

Blogging among adults has held steady since 2005, Pew found, but it has dropped among Internet users between the age of 18 and 29 -- while rising in those over 30.

"It was a little bit surprising, although there are definitely explanations given the state of the technological landscape," Pew researcher Aaron Smith said.

Smith also said teens may be moving away from Twitter because they see it as designed for celebrities, and because of reluctance to put their thoughts on site so easily accessible to the public when they can post them to their Facebook page instead.

"It was somewhat interesting in the sense that teens tend to be the early adopters," Smith said. "They were the first to use social networking and texting. Its certainly unusual compared to what we've seen with other technology."