Technology: Teens Speak Up

The last panel of the D conference last week revolved around the current and upcoming generation, the one we're all trying to figure out. What motivates them? Where is their hearts and heads at? Where are they spending money? What's valuable to them and why?

This is the generation who may only experience 'the digital.' There are so many things to address around this from the psychological impact to more social and intellectual ones.

Some of the results from the discussion:

Most preferred email over IM, which was in contrast to the teen panel from Web 2.0 last fall. Interestingly enough, quite a few of the responses were different. Was the difference in the Web 2.0 set of teens one of higher economic status and more urban areas?

One of the things that the Web 2.0 and D audiences wanted more of was this kind of data, particularly since the ambiguity between both groups doesn't give me a clear idea of what and how to market. A Web 2.0 teen said, "what's a CD?" and this group tend to use them more than digital music. Huh?

We had a few more 1970 aha moments, like learning that one teen actually still has Atari. Huh?

Two of the three girls mostly used their cell phones for voice calls rather than IM. One of the male teens says, "I’ll use whatever my friends use because those are the only people I talk to.”

There was a consistent thread around 'adopting whatever their friends are using.'

On email, they used a combination of Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail and AOL. In terms of search, they all used Google, and one used Google search bar built into his Safari browser. None of them even knew Microsoft had a search engine. We all wished Bill was back on the center stage to see the dazed look on their faces when Kara asked them about MSN search.

“I didn’t know that Microsoft had a search engine.” One girl said, “I think my dad uses it. On preferences and why do I use a search engine, the responses varied: "I like the cool colors." "They have great sounds." "I like Google because its white and its not filled with advertisements.”

Walt Mossberg asks the group, “Do you think there are too many advertisements on the web, and what don’t you like about them?”

A few responses:
"It seems like they’re too desperately trying to grab my attention."

"I like Google because all the ads seem to be text based, they’re less intrusive."

"Google is less 'in-your-face. They’re often targeted to what I’m looking for but I rarely click on them because they’re sponsored ads."

"People don’t always go online to buy things, so why shove them in our face all the time."

"I hate the ads and the clutter.”

Interesting.

Asks Kara, “Have you bought anything from one of the ads?” All of them said – “no never.”

Walt pipes in at this point, “Do you buy more on the Internet versus a store?” Here, it mostly had to do with the 'best price.' Says one of the boys, "sometimes I’ll go to Craigs List or eBay to get a cheaper price.”

And what about the kinds of things they actually purchase online? Here, we had to laugh as they ranged from CDs to a drum set. One girl doesn’t buy things online because 'her mother doesn’t trust it.' Apparently her father had his identity stolen online.

A few more responses:
"I don’t use it to buy things because its too complicated."

"You have to use your credit card number and I don’t want to take the time to look for it."

"I don’t purchase things online because I like to see and feel things, but I do shop for books online because its cheaper to buy books there.”

“Online is easier for me in college than it was in high school. I don’t have a car and commercial centers are not convenient for me. I purchased a candle for my mother and had it shipped directly for her."

"I have used online to buy airline tickets online but I guess that’s pretty standard.”

Walt asks them about downloading music, whether they have a subscription service, whether they download for free, or a variation of the two.

The teenagers respond:

“I usually buy CDs, but if I can’t find the CD, I may go online.”

“I usually buy music in stores. Downloading gave my computer a bunch of viruses and it broke it, so I stopped downloading music. I used LiveWire.”

“I download from KaaZa. I also buy CDs. If its cheap, I’ll buy it, but if its not, I’ll download it. If I just want one song, I’ll download it online.”

“I think 99 cents is too expensive for one song. Everything is so expensive, like gas, college books, etc. 99 cents is too much money for one song. I prefer to download local bands who just want to get their music out there. They’re less about the money.”

“Where I live, we’re not allowed to download music, so I’ll just borrow CDs from a friend and copy them onto my computer.”

“An objection I have with iTunes is that there’s a restriction to how many times you can burn the song.”

“I like CDs because it may include a story about the artist as well.”

Walt and Kara ask about the iPod, CD players and digital music in general.

On portable CD players versus an iPod, more carried CD players, most likely due to the cost barriers. It was not as important for this group of teenagers to carry around digital music with them.

They then move into social networking, giving MySpace as an example. "When you were younger, was it mostly AOL and now more MySpace and other things?"

This seemed to be the case. Says one of the girls, “I used AOL when I was younger. But now, AOL stinks. I used to like them, but I don’t like their commercials. Most of my friends switched to Yahoo Mail and I liked the layout of the whole site better. Since they all went there, I switched.”

Notice the trend here. It's no surprise.

All of them had a MySpace page, but one of the boys rarely signed in. "FaceBook is more widely used among my friends," he says. “MySpace always seems to have an error and everyone customizes their pages in a way that is just too annoying, with too much flash.”

One of the girls says, “I use both but I agree with Kevin (the teenage boy who talked about the MySpace clutter), there’s too much advertising on these sites and its not always reliable." She loves FaceBook, “because it allows me to connect with everyone on the web. I like how its so safe and focused on people my age, friends who are in college. I feel like its safer than MySpace. With FaceBook, you can customize your profile so that not everyone can see it. You can make it for friends from your school only.”

Two preferred MySpace because they could be more creative. “I put photos of cats, my friends, my family, music and art.” Another says, “I can learn a lot here, and there are also games, books and videos on the site. I can show my personality more. When my friends contribute to my page, it shows what they think of me.”

Interesting.....and again, not surprising.

They talk about YouTube for a moment. Most had heard of it but not all used it. “It’s alright if there’s nothing on TV. I look for cartoons that I have heard of or if there’s something on the home page that looks interesting.”

None of them really watched TV online.

Says one, “I try to watch TV online but its too slow.”

“I tried to watch online but it took awhile to start."

"I use TiVo so I don't have to watch the commercials.”

Kevin gives an example of wanting to watch animals online so, “we searched for animals and we found some interesting stuff that we couldn’t find on TV. We discovered a video from 1972. There was a screen printed face, and all sorts of crazy clothes. It was a time warp, something I couldn’t find on television. It was either on YouTube or Google Videos, although I think we were using both.”

They talked about sharing photos online and on services, they tended to use a variation of Yahoo Pictures, Photo Bucket, MySpace and FaceBook.

They all loved Rotten Tomatoes, where they felt there was unbias opinion. "I trust friend’s words rather than going online, because I just think that there’s too much advertising. I wait until I see that a friend goes to a movie and get their opinion first."

On other social networking and media services:

YouTube – everyone has used it.
Skype – none of them had used it.
Flickr – only one of them had used it.
Digg.com – none of them had used it.
Delicious – none of them had used it.
Technorati – none of them had used it.
TiVo – two of them had used it.
Google Image Search – all of them had used it.

On ring tones, they all get them for free. They all felt it was too expensive, i.e., $3-4 a ring tone. They all wanted these for free or very low prices.

Walt asks them where they get their news from? WOW, check out the responses: The Economist, WSJ, Yahoo pop-up news, local paper and CNN.com, BBC World News or the MSN home page.

On blogs?
I read blogs all the time, say the girls. “I used to write a blog on LiveJournal and when my friends stopped doing it, I stopped."

Another perspective: "I find it a little narcissistic, if I have something to say, I’ll keep it to myself.”

The responses overall were varied. I think the key would be to learn a bit more about the demographics, so we can get a clearer picture of how much 'lifestyle' factors play a role, i.e., parent's income, urban versus rural, public versus private school, boys versus girls, and so on.

While not perfect, I love learning about this generation though and think that teen panels are a great way to at gain some insight and perspective into a world outside the Silicon Valley bubble. Next time however, I'd like to see a teen panel from kids from the midwest or Canada.

Tag: D4
Tag: D 2006