Teenagers from the mini-metros across India have increasingly been using social networking sites as compared to their counterparts in metros.
With Facebook emerging as Young India’s playground in social networking, 78.58 per cent of youth in mini metros surveyed had a Facebook account as against 72.87 in metros and 75.73 on an all India basis, according to the findings of a survey done by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) – TCS Gen Y survey 2013-14.
The survey, in its fifth year, covered 18,196 students between class 8-12 across 1,600 schools in 14 cities in India.
It found that while Google+ had made some inroads among youth, Twitter was least preferred as a networking site due to its complexity in usage. Interestingly, on an all-India basis 45.5 per cent of the students preferred face-to-face communication.
Addressing a press conference, Ajoyendra Mukherjee, Executive VP and Global Head, HR, TCS said these surveys helped "understand consumption behaviour among youth. They are the workforce of tomorrow.’’
He said TCS was also recruiting through channels like Facebook and LinkedIn rather than by third party recruiters. "A majority of our recruitment is done directly and we use third party recruiters only for niche, senior positions,’’ he said.
In terms of gadgets, the survey found that mobile phones were clearly the principal device with 86.68 per cent of students surveyed owing one followed by Home PC with 77.03 per cent owning one. 90.9 per cent of students surveyed in mini metros owned mobile phones against 82.43 per cent in metros. The youth prefer smartphones and in this category, Samsung is the leader with a 60 per cent share of the market among youth followed by Nokia with a 53.78 per cent presence all-India among the surveyed youth.
In terms of career interests, the findings showed that IT and Engineering were clearly preferred by the youth but media & entertainment were gaining ground.
