• Ad Age, Friday, November 3, 2006 11:49 AM

A new study of tweens and teens finds they prefer person-to-person interaction over instant messaging, cell phones and e-mail--teens (13 to 18) by 53% and tweens (8 to 12) by 81%. Other surprising findings in a poll of 1,487 kids by Alloy Media & Marketing and Harris Interactive: Both groups preferred landlines to cell phones, and respondents listed time spent with parents as more valuable than time spent with friends (especially among tweens).

One sign of the times noted: the emergence of "online-only" friends--individuals teens have never formally met, but chat with regularly online.

"What does it mean when a kid has 1,000 friends on a social-networking site? There's nothing out there that speaks to this, and we need to know," says Suzanne Martin, Harris Interactive's research manager-youth and education research.

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