India's youth prefer communicating through social networks: Report

Harnessing the power of Internet, about 75 percent of India's youth prefers social media over phone calls to communicate, with more students using the Net for school-related tasks, says a TCS survey.

The findings, a part of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Gen-Y survey 2012-13, reveal that today's youth are collaborating through social networking tools and building virtual communities aided by affordable bandwidth and smart devices.

The exhaustive study by India's largest software services exporter covered nearly 17,500 high-school students across 14 Indian cities and claimed to have conducted the first such survey in India.

"India's post-millennial generation, those people born in 1996 and afterwards, seem set to overtake the preceding millennial generation, taking communication over social networks like Facebook and Twitter and instant messaging modes like Whatsapp to newer extremes," TCS said.

Nearly three out of four students cited "Research for School" as the main reason to access the Internet followed by social reasons like chatting and connecting with friends (62 percent), it added.

The survey said the urban post-millennial generation is increasingly turning to text and chat as alternatives to voice.

"Seventy four percent of those surveyed said they use Facebook the most to communicate while 54 percent conceded to use SMS, both significantly higher than the number of students who said they use voice calls (44 percent) for the same purpose," it added.

"Urban school students today are gaining greater online access with more affordable bandwidth and smart devices on offer. They are an ultra-connected generation using the power of the Internet for education as well as collaborating through social networks and building virtual communities," TCS Chief Executive N Chandrasekaran said.

The survey findings revealed that social networks like Facebook, Twitter are the primary and clear favourites among today's youth to connect with their peers with 92 percent of the respondents preferring Facebook.

"Interestingly, preference for Facebook is equally high among respondents in both metros (92 percent) and mini-metros (91 percent)," it added.

Seventy four percent of the respondents said that they prefer social platforms to communicate instead of calls and mails.

Besides, the youth have graduated to utilising the full potential of smartphones and almost 70 percent of the students surveyed carry a handset.