Teenagers in Ireland prefer the Internet to television, according to the findings of a workshop carried out on behalf of the Ombudsman for Children's Office.
"Our feedback suggests that parents today are far more likely to find their teenage children at home in front of a computer screen than a TV," said the Ombudsman for Children, Emily Logan.
"We were surprised to find that, without exception, the teenagers we meet chose the Internet over TV," Ms Logan added.
Arekibo Communications conducted the workshop to make the Ombudsman for Children's website as relevant as possible to its target audience.
They found that the information teenagers would find most useful include tips on moving schools and making friends, exam and study advice, information on children's rights and problems in the home.
The Managing Director of Arekibo Communications, Martin Casey said: "They [children] do use the web to watch TV but are more likely to use email, instant messaging and SMS over the web.
"They are highly sophisticated search engine users, mostly Google or Yahoo, and so are also quite specific in what they want to access from the web," he added.