Older teenage girls are far more likely than younger girls, or boys of any age, to use social-networking sites like MySpace or Facebook, according to a recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The study found that, while older girls use such sites the most, older boys are more likely to meet new people through them. Sixty percent of older boys, for example, say they use the sites to make new friends, while only 46 percent of older girls do. And older boys are more than twice as likely to say they use the sites to flirt.

“Older boys are much more expansive in their use of the sites,” said Amanda Lenhart, one of the study’s two authors. “I believe that it has a lot to do with socialization. A lot of the media messages about safety tend to be aimed more at girls than boys.”

The study was conducted over a month last fall, through telephone interviews with households with minor children, who were identified from random calls over the last three years. The data was weighted to be nationally representative in terms of sex, age, education, race and other factors. ALEX MINDLIN