A recent study by UNICEF has brought to light some interesting (though not very surprising) stats regarding usage of MXit, one of south Africa’s most popular mobile social platforms.

A couple of weeks ago 2oceansVibe reported on the sale of MXit to South African entrepreneur, Alan Knott-Craig for an undisclosed sum. MXit claims to have over 40 million active users in 128 countries around the world, many of whom fall into the youth category.

Here at 2oceansVibe, we feel that it’s our civic duty, no, our humanitarian responsibility to help you process and interpret these findings, so read on for the reported stats and our spot on interpretations of some of the results:

Asked what they prefer to do at home, 30% responded “Use MXit” in comparison to 13.5% who said, “Do school work”.

TRANSLATION: MXit is not for nerds.

11% of respondents use MXit to find a girlfriend, 5% to find a boyfriend (though it was not clarified if these were relationships sought with acquaintances or strangers).

TRANSLATION: There is a higher proportion of straight guys and/or lesbians on MXit than straight girls/gay guys. Use it, don’t use it.

46% reported using MXit to discuss their love lives (the most popular topic by a long margin), while 19% preferred discussing topics related to entertainment and sports. 7% reported favouring discussions of school-related topics.

TRANSLATION: MXit is a sticky nest of horny teenagers, and is still not for nerds.

79% of respondents reported using the ASLR tag to determine the Age, Sex, Location & Race of their chat partners.

TRANSLATION: 21% of MXit users clearly need to have a serious discussion with Pedo-Bear regarding their online safety! It’s a shark pool kids, and your lack of ASLR’s are just chum in the water!

“To ‘R’ or not to ‘R’, that is the question.”

Of the 79% who used the ASLR question:

• 10% asked it to make conversation,
• 9% asked out of habit,
• 7% percent said they just wanted to get a mental picture of the person (ask for a pic, nOObs!)
• 6% asked it with a view to meeting the other person,
• 5% reported they did it to determine the race of the other person,
• 4% percent added the “R” said it was because they preferred talking to certain races,
• 3% wanted to know race in order to avoid racism,

TRANSLATION: Kids, we’re all the same colour on the inside. True story. (My brain hurts, does that all add up to 100% yet?)

26% experienced insults on MXit (of these, 28% reported the insults to be race-based).

TRANSLATION: Horny teenagers with potty mouths!

The report was published by UNICEF (The United Nations Childrens’ Fund), the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, MXit, and the University of Cape Town as part of UNICEF Youth’s digital citizenship and safety project, in recognition of the potential for learning and empowerment such technologies offer.

TRANSLATION: A bunch of adults hanging around on MXit asking teenagers penetrative questions… awkward!

You can read other details on the report here.

[Source: TIMES Live, UNICEF South Africa]