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To: Boplicity who wrote (131590)	6/8/1999 4:56:00 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 176387

FYI...<<Digital Kids Will Be An Economic Force (06/07/99, 6:57 p.m. ET) By Malcolm Maclachlan, TechWeb Kids and teens are going to be one of the fastest-growing demographics online and will soon become major online spenders, according to a recent survey. Jupiter Communications' study of young people's online use, conducted in April, mirrors many of the trends found in a similar study one year ago: Young people use the Web differently from adults, girls use it differently from boys, and the Net is stealing audience share from television. The number of American teens -- defined as those from 13 to 18 -- online jumped significantly from last year, to 8.4 million from 4.9 million. Among kids aged 5 to 12, the increase was even more dramatic: to 8.6 million from 2.7 million. These demographics will continue to grow faster than the number of adult online users. This is especially true among kids, whom the study projected to grow to 16 percent of online users by 2002, up from 6 percent today. By this time, said Jupiter analyst Evan Cohen, 56 percent of kids and 72 percent of teens will be online, making them more likely to be wired than adults. Teens and kids will also be a fast-growing economic force. Two-thirds of teens and 37 percent of kids have purchased a product online in the past year. All told, their spending will total $123 million online this year, up from $53 million last year and only $17 million in 1997. This will jump to $1.26 billion in 2003, the study projects. However, this number will still only represent 5 percent of consumer online spending. While young people generally have an easier time navigating the Web than their parents, factors such as parental control, lack of trust in commerce sites, and the high price of goods online tend to hold back their spending. But shopping does not just mean buying, said Charles Hamlin, president of NFO Interactive, the survey company that conducts the annual study in conjunction with Jupiter. About one-third of respondents said online browsing of products regularly influenced their offline choice of that products to buy, he said. "Kids are clearly avid online shoppers," he said. When they do make purchases, girls and boys show widely divergent shopping habits the study found. Boys dominate purchases in areas such as software, PCs, consumer electronics, and sporting goods. Girls buy more music, books, event tickets, clothing, and health and beauty aids. Similarly, boys were more likely to play games and read about sports online, while girls were heavier users of chat, instant messaging, and e-mail. As kids get older, online usage increases, the study found. Only 11 percent of kids identified themselves as heavy Internet users -- online more than 10 hours a week -- compared with 31 percent of teens. Forty percent of respondents said their time online had resulted in spending less time watching television. Among heavy users, this number is 55 percent.>>