Bhubaneswar, Dec. 27: A significant number of teenagers in the city spend more than an hour online every day, said a survey.

The survey, conducted among school students in the city by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), aimed to understand the digital habits of those in the 12-18 year age group.

It collected data from 1,000 children studying at various schools in the city and found that an overwhelming 82 per cent of them owned a smartphone, while 93 per cent logged on to Facebook regularly.

The survey also found that around 65 per cent teens owned a laptop or a personal computer, while around 30 per cent used an iPad or a tablet. An interesting revelation from the survey is that boys are more active on social networking sites than girls.

Around 31 per cent of the teens spent at least an hour everyday online while 40 per cent responded to notifications within five minutes of receiving them.

When it comes to social networking sites, Google Plus and Twitter follow Facebook with 62 per cent and 54 per cent respectively.

Twitter is more popular among boys (58 per cent) as compared to girls (36 per cent). The students also regularly followed sports personalities, celebrities and film stars on the micro-blogging site.

Around 73 per cent of the respondents use Whatsapp as their instant messaging platform, followed by Hike and WeChat.

Psychological counsellors and sociologists believe that the increasing use of smartphones has both positive and negative impacts.

"It is good if the students use their smartphones to download apps that would help them in their studies. But, the huge number of Whatsapp users is also a cause for concern as it may distract them from their studies," says sociologist Gayatri Kar.

The survey also showed that teenagers used the Internet frequently for shopping. Around 90 per cent of the respondents said that they shopped online with electronic gadgets (59 per cent) being the most popular buy followed by books (53 per cent) and clothes (51 per cent).

Pradipta Bagchi, vice-president and head of global communications at TCS, who headed the survey, said: "The present generation of youngsters in Bhubaneswar are socially collaborative and technologically aware, but digital naives."