Report: Teens Dump the TV- Prefer to Geek Out Online

"This Generation is a Revolutionary Consumer Group"

[martinibuster]

From MediaPost.com [mediapost.com]

The younger generation uses the Internet as their media "hub" and they feel empowered by the abundant media choices... This generation is a revolutionary consumer group... and their patterns will influence the future of media spending...Our industry needs to evaluate and change our communications approach to successfully reach this key target market.

Gotta rethink and refocus...

[jsinger]

I disagree:

People--especially the web-illiterate press-- assumed that the internet is populated by enormous numbers of geeky technokids. The reality, according to several studies, reveals that the web is used pretty equally by all age groups except the very oldest. I'd guess, too, that kids make little use of email compared with adults.

Learning computer technology (a rage 20 years ago) is passe among teenagers. My son just took a high school course in programming, but it isn't a hot area now. He wanted no part of my idea that he build his own computer to take to college.

When my kids are on the computer, they are often playing video games rather than surfing the web.

There is a chance a generation down the road that the web will be seen by youngsters as something Grandpa used to do!

[dragonlady7]

I dunno-- I came of age as the Web was, too, and did my first flirting over email, and did all my socializing at college over IM. My little sister back home on dial-up has grown up going online for an hour or two at night to chat with her buddies and email people. She emails much less than I do, chats more, surfs less, and spends less time. Most of the kids I know her age (she's 18 now but i keep forgetting that and reverting her to about 11 in my mind) are perfectly comfortable online but don't feel that it's their entire life. I'd say the computer steals a couple hours away from the T.V., but I don't know that it's totally reshaped the lives of teens or anything like that.
Computer science isn't as popular as you'd think, but everyone and their brother is going into I.T. Building your own computer is less exciting-- it's easy enough to do now, you don't need much knowledge, and you won't save *that* much over just buying a freakin' Dell. So there's no mystique, and little cachet associated with it. I built my last PC and was terribly proud of it, but just this summer i gave up and just bought a Mac. (Never been happier with a computer, btw. It just *works*.)

If the Web has revolutionized how teens interact with media, it's because it's given them more choices. But cable TV has done that too. That generation is used to choice in their entertainment, and is much less likely to accept TV being stuffed down their numb throats. It's not necessarily more sophistication, just more ADD. So yes, it's a challenge to marketers, but it should be-- you can't just put a new coat of paint on your old advertising campaigns and assume that won't just annoy people.

[choster]

I don't think teenage interest in building computers-- or websites-- is any measure of interest or time spent using the Internet. There was a long age of home-made automobiles, and a longer period of hotrodding and customization. But now in the age of computerized fuel injection, only a hardcore few risk fiddling with the engine to get five more horsepower. That doesn't diminish the cultural importance of having a car any more than ups and downs in the number of automotive engineering majors MIT graduates in a given year.

For the forseeable future, the car will be central to the idea of personal transportation, and IMHO the Internet will be central to the idea of general information transmission for some time.

As a so-called "Gen-Xer" I did not encounter the net until my university years, but I do have to say that I pay very little attention to television-- it's something to have playing in the background while I read or talk on the phone little different from a CD or radio. Time spent on the Internet is not time taken away from TV, but away from video rentals or phone calls (though mobile phone conversations are as cheap as IMs nowadays)

[rcjordan]

It's been my experience that, in the US, web info/entertainment is treated as a given --almost a utility-- by anyone under 25 and, for those from more affluent households, that attitude goes up to somewhere around age 30.

We have very little interest in TV around our house. It's more of a "DVD & VCR monitor" than anything else. In fact, we're online so much in our businesses that a little TV is more of a break to get away from the keyboard than anything else, but it's definitely 2nd-tier.

related:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[TheWhippinpost]

It's always pertinent to ask who sponsored these findings and who's reporting them...then who benefits from sponsoring and reporting them!..hmmm!

[cfx211]

If you are looking for an academic/anthropologic study of the cultural effect of the internet, I recommend the Pew Internet and American Life Project:

[pewinternet.org...]

Good source for non commerically motivated research.

IMHO, the generation that has grown up with the internet their whole life are much more likely to be active participants in it instead of passive readers of content. By active participant I mean IM'ing, file sharing, blogging, posting photos, website building etc... instead of people who read the paper online and sometimes buy something from Amazon.