U.S. teens lose interest in blogging: study
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Blogging by teenagers and young adults has dropped by half over the past three years as they turn instead to texting and social networking sites such as Facebook, a new study shows.
The study released this week by the Pew Internet and American Life project also found that fewer than one in 10 teens were using Twitter, a surprising finding given overall popularity of the micro-blogging site.
According to the report, 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.
“It was a little bit surprising, although there are definitely explanations given the state of the technological landscape,” Pew researcher Aaron Smith told Reuters.
Smith said the report’s authors attributed the decline in blogging to the explosion of social networking sites such as Facebook, which emphasize short status updates over personal journals.
According to the study, 73 percent of teens who were online used social networking sites.
He also cited the ubiquity of cell phones. Much of the communication between young people now takes place on mobile devices, which don’t lend themselves to long-form writing.
via Reuters
Google, NSA to team up in cyberattack probe
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Internet search firm Google is finalizing a deal that would let the National Security Agency help it investigate a corporate espionage attack that may have originated in China, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.
The aim of the investigation is to better defend Google, the world’s largest Internet search company, and its users from future attacks, the Post said, citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the arrangement.
The sources said Google’s alliance with the NSA — the intelligence agency is the world’s most powerful electronic surveillance organization — would be aimed at letting them share critical information without violating Google’s policies or laws that protect the privacy of online communications.
via Reuters
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