MySpace dominates social networking, with no competitor service achieving even a tenth of its figures, according to a Pew Internet/American Life survey into US teenagers' use of social networking sites, writes Ian Delaney.

Highlights from the survey - published January 7 - include:

• 55% of online teens have created a personal profile online, and 55% have used social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook.
• 66% of teens who have created a profile say that their profile is not visible to all internet users. They limit access to their profiles.
• 48% of teens visit social networking websites daily or more often; 26% visit once a day, 22% visit several times a day.
• Older girls ages 15-17 are more likely to have used social networking sites and created online profiles; 70% of older girls have used an online social network compared with 54% of older boys, and 70% of older girls have created an online profile, while only 57% of older boys have done so.

So a little over half of teenagers use these services, according to the survey. MySpace is by far the dominant player, attracting 85% of social networking teens; only 7% used second favourite Facebook.

Their use is perhaps surprisingly safety-conscious - two thirds limit access to their profiles. This tallies with research published at the beginning of the year by the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire saying that "about 91% of those teens' profiles reviewed did not list full names, which could be valuable information to online predators. About 40% of youngsters on MySpace keep their profiles private."

There's an interesting division between the way girls and boys act online. At the younger end of the scale, ages 12-14, boys and girls behave in much the same way online. However, once they hit 15, girls become much more likely than boys (70% vs. 57%) to create an online profile. Also, 90% of older girls use the site to stay in touch with friends they rarely see, compared to 81% of older boys.

On the other hand, boys act in a way that might be described as more gregarious. While 60% of boys will use social networks to find new friends, this is only done by 46% of girls. Perhaps girls have been conditioned to have more fear of potentially predatory strangers. Only 17% of teens of either sex say that they use the sites to flirt with someone. This may seem like a very low number, but given how very unromantic MySpace actually is, perhaps isn't. Danah Boyd points out that the interviewees are contacted through their parents and that the interviews are conducted in their presence. This may lead to more conservative answers and lower counts of disapproved behaviour than may actually be the case.