Pew’s experts wrote:

Aided by the convenience and constant access provided by mobile devices, especially smartphones, 92% of teensreport going online daily — including 24% who say they go online “almost constantly,” according to a new study from Pew Research Center. More than half (56%) of teens — defined in this report as those ages 13 to 17 — go online several times a day, and 12% report once-a-day use. Just 6% of teens report going onlineweekly, and 2% go online less often.

Additionally, use of the Internet skews heavily toward social networks, which is bad news for traditional media, particularly as the nation’s youth move online without taking old-world media and entertainment with them:

Facebook remains the most used social media site among American teens ages 13 to 17 with 71% of all teens using the site, even as half of teens use Instagram and four-in-ten use Snapchat.

While this is good news for Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) in light of worry about the lack of growth in its user count and stagnating time of use by members, it is particularly bad news for Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR), which has struggled to market itself as a real social network and not just a toy for sending brief messages.

When not using social networks, teens glue themselves to the Internet via smartphones for other reasons:

As American teens adopt smartphones, they have a variety of methods for communication and sharing at their disposal. Texting is an especially important mode of communication for many teens. Some 88% of teens have or have access tocell phones or smartphones and 90% of those teens with phones exchange texts. A typical teen sends and receives 30 texts per day.

Accounting for normal sleep patterns, that is about two texts an hour.

No wonder so few students are ready for college.

By Douglas A. McIntyre

A Quarter of Teens ‘Online Constantly’ — Pew