Facebook new form of entertainment for GenY: TCS Survey

Its official. Facebook is the new form of entertainment for GenY, says the TCS GenY survey 2011, conducted by the IT firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)

As many as 85% of high school students use Facebook, and only 0.71% use television for entertainment, according to the survey. In 2009, the number of Facebook users was only 17%.

Over 12,300 high school students over 12 cities represent GenY.

“Combination of more bandwidth, availability of smart devices and the surging popularity of social networks is changing the way India’s high school students conduct their academic and social lives,” said N Chandrasekaran, CEO and MD, TCS.

While mobile phone figures highest on the list of favourite gadgets for GenY, personal computers continue to dominate the list of devices used to access the Web, at 68.2%, while the laptop figures second at 49.35%.

The survey adds that an increase in Internet penetration into households, has seen a significant drop in the popularity of schools and cyber cafes as avenues to access the Internet. As many as 84.3% students access the Net at home, while 20-22% students use school computers or cyber cafes to connect.

The use of Internet however, is at 74% for doing research work for school with chatting and connecting to friends coming in second at 67.8%. Also, at 33.3%, most students accessed the Internet for 30 to 60 minutes, while only 5.4% accessed the same for over three hours.

Around 58.6% respondents however, prefer voice calls to communicate with friends. While 44% students used Email as the next mode of communication,
33% use instant messaging and 27.5% use Twitter/Facebook, respectively to communicate.

Mobile phone is the most favourite gadget of the high school students with 28% respondents all over India voting for it. In Delhi, this number was higher at 35.8% with ownership numbers even higher, at 86%. Also, 42% of the students who own mobile phones use it to access the internet.