'More Indian teens using networking sites to communicate'

An increasing number of teenagers in India are using social networking sites to remain in touch with each other with mobiles as their favourite gadget, a study said Wednesday.

The GenY Survey 2011-12 by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) covered 12,000 high school students aged between 12-18 in 12 cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Kochi, Pune and Lucknow between July and December 2011.

"While 84 percent of the respondents had internet access at home, 85 percent used social networking site such as Facebook and 79 percent owned a mobile phone. Preferring entertainment on the move, 28 percent of the respondents said mobile phone was their favourite gadget," said the survey.

"A total of 88 percent respondents from metropolitan cities had a Facebook account while other platforms such as Orkut and India-based Apna Circle, Ibibo and Hi5 were more popular in small metros," it said.

It said 40 percent of the teenagers in metros said they had internet access on their mobile phones and television emerged as the least favourite gadget with less than one percent voting for it.

Further, text and chat are emerging as preferred alternatives to voice calls with 50 percent of those surveyed in metros said they used SMS the most to communicate while 45 percent used instant messaging and 38 percent used Facebook or Twitter.

Majority of youngsters preferred information technology as a career option followed by engineering and medicine, said the survey.