Julia Schwartz is a typical 14-year-old social butterfly: text messaging her friends on her cell phone (when she's not using it to make video clips), surfing iTunes, instant messaging on her laptop,
watching TV, and keeping her mother at bay with vague responses to what she's doing. A new
Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll that surveyed the habits of 12- to 24-year-old females found that
they are more likely to multitask than boys of their age group. "Today it's the girls at the front of generational change," economist and historian Neil Howe says. The girls of Julia's age were
influenced by the late-1990s "girl power" phenomenon, and now are often more accomplished, higher achievers than their male counterparts, according to Howe. More than half of teenage girls reported
regular IMing, about two-thirds report writing and reading email regularly, and just under half report visiting social networking sites.
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