There will be 22 million teens online by 2008, up from 18 million in 2003. Among these, a select group of “teen influencers” will have increasingly more say about household spending.

That’s one finding from JupiterResearch, which surveyed 1,800 teens online for a trio of research reports released earlier this month.

Surprisingly, girls go online at a younger age and are slightly more influential than boys. Girls are more active online at 14 than boys are at 17, per Jupiter. Teen girls spend about 22% more time online than boys-but teen boys spend 150% more time playing games online.

The most active kids (averaging eight hours per week online) account for about 17% of all online teens. These “teen influencers” are popular with peers, style-conscious, and influential with family and friends. They undertake the broadest array of online activities and tend to be older and wealthier than average. Fully 53% of influencers are girls, reports Darien, CT-based Jupiter.

Teens spend an average seven hours a week online versus 10 hours watching TV. Seventy-one percent regularly use instant messaging; 30% use personal pages and Weblogs. Teens go online for games, music and movies more often than adults, but seek less online about sports and TV than adults do.

(Promo) There will be 22 million teens online by 2008, up from 18 million in 2003. Among these, a select group of “teen influencers” will have increasingly more say about household spending.

That’s one finding from JupiterResearch, which surveyed 1,800 teens online for a trio of research reports released earlier this month.

Surprisingly, girls go online at a younger age and are slightly more influential than boys. Girls are more active online at 14 than boys are at 17, per Jupiter. Teen girls spend about 22% more time online than boys-but teen boys spend 150% more time playing games online.

The most active kids (averaging eight hours per week online) account for about 17% of all online teens. These “teen influencers” are popular with peers, style-conscious, and influential with family and friends. They undertake the broadest array of online activities and tend to be older and wealthier than average. Fully 53% of influencers are girls, reports Darien, CT-based Jupiter.

Teens spend an average seven hours a week online versus 10 hours watching TV. Seventy-one percent regularly use instant messaging; 30% use personal pages and Weblogs. Teens go online for games, music and movies more often than adults, but seek less online about sports and TV than adults do.