In a new report on teenagers and social media by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that there is a subset of teens who are ’super-communicators’ — teens who have a host of technology options for dealing with family and friends, including traditional landline phones, cell phones, texting, social network sites, instant messaging, and email. They represent about 28% of the entire teen population and they are more likely to be older girls.

Very striking is the percentages of teenagers who prefer telephone and face-to-face contact over email. Let’s teach them how to communicate well and with emotional intelligence!!!

This ‘multi-channel’ pattern could be described as transliteracy, defined as “the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks”.

There is a very good article with examples from history, orality, philosophy, literature, and ethnography here.The level of sophistication of using multimedia methods of communication is one that many adults are enjoying too! Lots of time juggling required.