Internet, social media are important part of young Filipinos’ life – survey shows

When Mark Zuckerberg and his friends first toyed with the idea of Facebook in 2004, young people today were just kids. Now, these kids comprised the 15-24 age group and appear to be the biggest consumers of information technology developed by young people their age a decade ago. This is one of the findings released today by the Demographic Research and Development Foundation (DRDF) and the University of the Philippines Population Institute (UPPI).

The data is based on the latest round of survey on young adults in the Philippines. The Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality (YAFS) Study is a national survey of adolescents and young adults and was first conducted in 1982.

Dr. Grace Cruz, the main author of the study on media use and youth lifestyle noted how media consumption of young adults had shifted through the years. “Young people’s consumption of traditional forms of mass media, especially of newspapers, has been low and this declined further in 2013. This however, does not necessarily mean that they read less. It could be that they get their news online now”.

In 2013, 6 in 10 of young people in this age range are regular internet users, more than half have social network and email account and 78 percent have mobile phones. On average, they spend 6 hours a week online, some logging in as much as 35 hours of internet use. Females, the younger youth and those from economically better off regions show higher social media consumption than males, older youth and those coming from poorer regions.

This pattern of internet and information technology use translates on how they build relationships. One in three young people for instance said that they have friends whom they only met online, while 25 percent have friends whom they met through text and have not seen personally.