Nearly all US students who go online use social networking technologies such as chatting, text messaging and blogging and visit Websites such as Facebook and MySpace, according to the National School Boards Association's "Creating & Connecting: Research and Guidelines on Online Social and Educational Networking" report conducted by Grunwald Associates.
About 60% of students who use the Internet said they discussed education-related topics such as college or college planning. Half said they talked specifically about schoolwork.
"Our study showed that 96% of school districts say that at least some of their teachers assign homework requiring Internet use," Peter Grunwald of Grunwald Associates said in a statement.
Almost half of the students said they had uploaded pictures they made or photos they took. More than one-fifth said they had uploaded a video they created.
Social networking teens spent an average of nine hours a week on those activities, compared with 10 hours a week watching television.
"Creating & Connecting: Research and Guidelines on Online Social and Educational Networking" was based on three surveys: an online survey of nearly 1,300 young people, age 9 to 17, an online survey of more than 1,000 parents and telephone interviews with 250 school district leaders who make decisions on Internet policy.
The study was sponsored by Microsoft, News Corp. and
Verizon.