Princess Phone – 1970’s Connection
When I was a teen we spent hours on our AT&T Princess Phones, tying up the single family line for everyone else in the house. There was no call waiting or voice mail. “Get Off the PHONE! I need to make a call!!” was a common parental lament.
Back then, hanging out with friends meant a trip to the beach or the mall – usually by bus. We had pen pals in distant countries or states who we communicated with a few times a year.
How times have changed.
A defining characteristic of today’s teens is that they are in constant communication with their friends, generally via text messaging, not necessarily voice conversation. I have personally witnessed teens texting each other while sitting side by side, something OTX Research says 25% of 12-24 year olds in the U.K. admit to doing. This makes perfect sense to them.
Morgan Stewart, Director, Research & Strategy, at ExactTarget wrote an article for Engage Gen Y based on observational research among teens. He writes:
“…hanging out, or even talking, has taken on different connotations from what I experienced as a teenager. “When someone says they were talking with so-and-so last night, it’s more than likely they were texting, not actually talking. In fact, digital communication has become so central to the lives of teens that some struggle to relate without a keyboard, “several times I’ve sat in Starbucks with a teenager who will barely speak. Then we go home and I start getting texts responding to the questions I asked face-to-face. These text conversations can go on for an hour or two.”
The facts bear out the anecdotes. Text messages far outnumber phone calls, (which calls into question whether it should even be called a mobile phone anymore since it is so rarely used to talk).
According to Nielsen Mobile, in the first quarter of 2009, the average U.S. teen made and received an average of 191 phone calls and sent and received 2,899 text messages per month. By the third quarter, the number of monthly texts had jumped to 3,146 messages. Even preteens send and receive 1,146 texts per month.
Many parents have learned it’s more effective to text their teen than to call. (For some great tips on using SMS text messaging to reach Millennials, see Engage Gen Y, “What’s In It for Me?”)
When it comes to time spent online, Facebook has emerged as the number one activity for all age groups, not just teens.
In January 2010, Nielsen reported the average U.S. Internet user spent seven hours a month on Facebook. That’s more time than on Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Microsoft, Wikipedia and Amazon combined. Note, that’s the average Internet user. The average Facebook user spends 55 minutes a day on Facebook. And that’s across all Facebook users, so imagine how much time teens are spending.
According to Morgan, Facebook’s most critical role is as a hub for coordinating other social activities. Teens may set a time to meet at Starbucks or they may direct attention to another online gathering spot. (If Facebook forms the hub of teen communications, Twitter isn’t even on the wheel. Pew found just 8% of teens 12-17 use Twitter).
“In a recent survey, I asked teens (15-17 years old) to name the brand that did the best job communicating with them. Facebook ranked sixth on the list. Nike, with its focus on athletic accomplishment, ranked fourth. Amazon had more write-ins than any other brand, for males and females and across both U.S. and U.K. respondents.
Why? Because it is a socially driven shopping experience.
Teens can read reviews, they can submit their own, and they can get recommendations based on what they like. If you’re responsible for marketing a consumer product, I’d argue that managing your Amazon presence is more important that building out a Facebook strategy.” — Morgan Stewart, Exact Target
Like Stewart, I have observed that, at least for Millennials, Facebook is utilitarian. It fills the same function for them that Outlook does for me – calendar, message center, contact info.
Beyond Facebook, there are other sites which are more entertaining and every bit as social like Sporcle.com, FMyLife.com, FunnyOrDie.com, TextsFromLastNight.com, CollegeHumor.com, and FailBlog.org. Others connect through online video games like “Call of Duty”.
All together, teens spend more than 20 hours a day using media, the majority of which is electronic.
According to Larry Rosen, author of the new book, Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way They Learn,” this staggering achievement is accomplished daily by forgoing sleep and “with considerable multitasking, which peaks at seven simultaneous activities for older teens“.
Those with teen kids have seen Gen Y multi-tasking in action. There is music playing in the background, Hulu on the computer, several homework assignments open in various levels of completion, text messages alerts coming in like sonar, and possibly a little PlayStation or XBox for a break from it all. Yet somehow the homework gets done.
Sleep? That’s for the weekend.
Want More? The May 2009 pdf of Nielsen’s Report, “How Teens Use Media”, provides more detail on teen multi-tasking, online video, text messaging, social media use.
