As per a survey conducted by Tata Consultancy Services, 2014-15, across 14 cities in India, of over 12,365 high school students, of the age group of 12-18, the GenY of today is highly social and more than 75% spend at least an hour everyday online. They lead a gadget rich lifestyle and are constantly in touch with friends and family, being heavy internet users. Facebook remains the favorite with 90% followers among the respondents, Google plus followed by 65% and surprisingly Twitter had 40% followers. 70% of the youngsters say, it keeps them abreast with current affairs and connected with friends and family, but they do not find it useful for studies. 36% of the youngsters still prefer face to face communication with friends, even though 46% liked to stay in touch digitally using video chat. As far as text messaging is concerned, WhatsApp stands the most popular instant messaging platform with 58%, followed by SMS having 20% followers, among the respondents. More than half (55%) of the students used desktops/home PC and laptops to access the internet while 30% liked to use smart phones. Among the surveyed youth 72% owned Smart phones and 40% found it the most preferred gadget. As far as studies and learning were concerned, Wikipedia stays the favorite with 63%, followed by PDFs with 53% and educational online videos at 44%. Good old newspapers and TV still has a following of 76% as far as news and current affairs were concerned, whereas online sources had a 53% following, links from family and friends stood at 36%. Fifty percent of the parents kept a close eye on their online activities and of these fifty, more than half gave their children access to online accounts, trending with the fast proliferating online portals.
