Illustration: Emma Dodd
A survey we did of Britain's youths - that's people between the ages of 14 and 21 - shows that almost a third of them those with internet access have their own weblogs or websites. A third.
That's a phenomenal change on a number of fronts: in the way people perceive technology, the way they perceive themselves, and the way they negotiate the still-fresh territory of online identity. As our article says:
Millions of young people who have grown up with the internet and mobile phones are no longer content with the one-way traffic of traditional media and are publishing and aggregating their own content, according to the exclusive survey of those aged between 14 and 21.
A generation has grown up using the internet as its primary means of communication, thanks to an early grasp of online communities and messaging services as well as simple technology allowing web users to launch a personal weblog, or blog, without any specialist technical knowledge. On average, people between 14 and 21 spend almost eight hours a week online, but it is far from a solitary activity. There are signs of a significant generation gap, and rather than using the internet as their parents do - as an information source, to shop or to read newspapers online - most young people are using it to communicate with one another.
