Teens are moving from magazines and television to online forms of communication and expression, according to research conducted by the makers of the Habbo virtual environment.

"What really surprised me is how quickly youngsters have ditched traditional media." That's the view of Alistair Williams, Marketing Manager of Habbo UK, the international virtual community of artfully pixellated avatars designed for teenagers. The Finnish company has recently released details of a survey into the media use of 42,000 teenagers across Habbo communities in 22 countries.

According to the survey, 89 per cent of teens say that the Internet is their most-used media, with the most important internet services being instant messaging and email. Teens generally view the Internet as being most important for socialising and keeping in touch with friends.

Traditional media, on the other hand, is on the decline. Only 66 per cent of respondents thought that television was an important media, and less than half of them consider radio as such. Print media fares no better: a mere 54 per cent of those surveyed believe that magazines are an important media, and less than 40 per cent considered newspapers so.

Understandably, reactions varied with age. While instant messaging was a key application for those respondents aged 14-18, email became considerably more popular among older users. Similarly, the importance of newspapers grew to surpass magazines and radio in terms of importance among 22-year-olds. Williams views these statistics as a sign of things to come: "This is the first generation that has been raised with the Internet. When this generation starts work, it will change the market forever."

It will come as no surprise to find that mobile phone use is vitally important to teens worldwide. Across the world, 85 per cent of Habbo users said they owned a mobile phone. Almost all respondents used SMS messaging as well as making phone calls; half also used their phones for taking pictures while a third said they listened to MP3 music on their mobiles.

However, internet use via a mobile phone is still nascent, with the exception of Japan, where 43 per cent of the respondents stated that they used it for this purpose. Only 6 per cent of Habbo users watch television using their mobile.

Youth subcultures vary considerably from country to country. Even the largest subcultures identified by the survey consisted of barely half of the respondents. Nonetheless, most have a positive self-image and think of themselves as successful and popular. Over half of the respondents described themselves as 'adventurers' and as 'sporty'. 46 per cent of the respondents thought of themselves as trendy; 40 per cent as artists; 36 per cent as interested in the environment. Over a third said they were technology freaks and 16 per cent said that they were nerds.

For Williams, one of the best steers for the future development of Habbo came in the results regarding the importance of music to young people. 88% of respondents said that it was a particular interest. The world has already played host to virtual appearances from artists including Lily Allen, Lil' Chris, Gorillaz and Jamelia, with some artists adding content to the world. Lil'Chris held a listening party including access a downloadable medley track combining hits from his latest album. The online billboard presenting the event registered click-through rates of 50 per cent. The company intends to increase the amount of music content and start charging artists to appear in the world, since "they are queueing up" to do so, according to Williams. The company has already developed Habbo-exclusive downloadable music content, such as a downloadable ringtone from Gorillaz.

Habbo is different to other online communities such as bebo or MySpace, in that it is predominantly an online game, as opposed to a profiling system. Launched in 1999 in Finland, and opening in the UK in 2000, Habbo is one of the most popular online communities in the world. To date, 70 million Habbo characters have been created, with 7.5 million unique users visiting Habbo each month. According to Williams, the UK system alone has 850,000 users logging on each month, with 76% of these accessing their account daily. The average spend on online extras such as furnishings for their virtual rooms is around £10 per month. Doing the maths, it will come as no surprise that the company is profitable and plans a stock market launch in the future.