A new survey has revealed that, despite the social media revolution, face-to-face and mobile communications are still the most important ways for young people to keep up with friends.
The survey confirms that young people perceive meeting up as much more important than many of the new social media communication platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
88% of the young people aged between 17 and 26 surveyed believed that face to face communication was quite or very important for friendship. The highest placed social media communication channel was Facebook with 61.2% of the vote. Only 8% believed Twitter was quite or very important.
Mobile phones were acknowledged as having an important communication role with SMS texts and mobile phone calls being acknowledged as quite or very important by 85.7% and 73% respectively.
The survey was completed by Ci Research (www.ci-research.com) on behalf of several UK marketing agencies, gathering views from 500 young people throughout the UK.
Colin Auton, Ci Research director, said,
“We read daily about a social media revolution, so we were keen to discover more about the level of penetration by new communications channels like Twitter. Our survey proves that communication between friends is a very personal issue best conducted face to face. Older mobile communication channels also have a clear strong hold.
“Perhaps the broadcast nature of Twitter makes personal conversations between friends less appealing, and Facebook performs more strongly because you can keep closer control on the friends who can access your updates.”
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