The exposure to media has increased over the past decade, adolescents’ utilization of computers, cell phones, stereos and televisions to gain access to various mobile mediums of popular culture has also increased. 

Almost all American households have at least one television, more than three-quarters of all adolescents‘ homes have access to the Internet, and more than 90% of American adolescents use the Internet at least occasionally.

In Africa More and more Africans are using mobile technologies to access social media tools on the Internet for communication.

The number of African Facebook users now stands at over 17 million, up from 10 million in 2009. More than 15 per cent of people online in Africa are currently using the platform, compared to 11 per cent in Asia. 

Two other social networking websites, Twitter and YouTube, rank among the most visited websites in most African countries.

As a result of the amount of time adolescents spend using these devices, their total media exposure is high. In the last decade, the amount of time that adolescents spend on the computer has greatly increased.

Online activities with the highest rates of use among adolescents are video games (78% of adolescents), email (73%), instant messaging (68%), social networking sites (65%), news sources (63%), music (59%), and videos (57%).

Teenagers are “heavy” social media users, meaning they use at least two different types of social media each and every day.