Some 19 percent of actively online teens create blogs and 38 percent read them; of those, 62 percent read solely friends' blogs and 36 percent read those of friends and others, according to a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, reports ClickZ. Girls age 15 to 17 are the most active bloggers, with one-fourth of those online in that age group creating blogs, compared with 15 percent for boys of the same age. "For young people it's about reinforcing and keeping relationships, not reading opinions of strangers," Pew senior research specialist Amanda Lenhart told ClickZ.

But many more teens do more than just blog, according to the Pew study, "Teen Content Creators and Consumers," based on surveys of 1,100 U.S. teens (age 12-17).

Some 33 percent of online teens share artwork, photos, stories, and video on the internet; 32 percent have created websites for themselves or others; and 22 percent keep a personal web page, reports MediaPost. Overall, of the 21 million teenagers who frequently use the web, more than half - 12 million - create some form of online content.

Teens are also avid online-content consumers. More than half - 51 percent - of online teens say they download music, compared with only 18 percent of online adults; moreover, 31 percent of download video files to their computers, compared with 14 percent for adults. Some 75 percent of online teens agree that getting free music via downloads and fire sharing is "easy to do," and "it's unrealistic to expect people not to do it."