Internet use is nearly universal among American teens; 95% of those ages 12-17 are internet users, up slightly from November 2004 (when 87% of teens went online). Internet usage is higher among teens than among adults as a whole (as of August 2011, 78% of all adults go online), although internet adoption rates among adults ages 18-29 are identical to those found among teens.

Teen internet use has intensified over the years. In this sample, 70% of teen internet users say they go online daily: 46% do so several times a day and an additional 24% do so about once a day. One-quarter (24%) go online weekly, while the remaining 6% go online every few weeks or less often. The proportion of teen internet users who go online several times a day has nearly doubled since November 2004 (at that point, 24% of teen internet users reported going online several times a day) and has increased by 10 percentage points since September 2009, when 36% of teen internet users reported going online multiple times per day.

There are relatively few demographic differences when it comes to how often teens go online, although older teens are likely to do so with greater frequency than are younger teens. Fully 53% of teen internet users ages 14-17 go online several times per day, compared with 30% of users ages 12-13.