So kids today have had the internet since the day they were born. Marketers hear this, and make a bunch of assumptions. They're not all correct. A new UK study shows that kids aren't great searchers (maybe because they don't have the life experience to give them the right search terms), for instance.
What did the study find of interest? Ars Technica finds three things we tend to agree with:
Kids like to cut-and-paste. Look at the explosion of mashups parodies and collaborative works generated by the internet generation. This isn't a new form of lazy - it's a new way of looking at content.
They prefer visual information over text. Duh. I'd say that the majority of humans fall into this category.
They multitask all the time. This is a great point that marketers need to understand. People write off tv as if it doesn't exist anymore. It does - it's just that it's no longer the primary media. Every teen has the tv on in the background, as they're cruising the internet. And internet sites can't expect to get all of the attention either. They're competing with multiple browser tabs, online gaming, IM and other online fun-generators.
Check out the study for yourself, and use it for some interesting factoids in your next PowerPoint presentation.
1 comment:
I was just with my nephew who turned 11 years old, and was hanging with 2 of his friends for his birthday. They spent the day playing video games, watching the football game and playing around online at some of the flash video and images sites and myspace pages. I was fascinated at how easily they could cut and paste html code, wondering if they even knew what it was they were actually doing.
It makes total sense they don't understand how to search...can't wait to read the study. Thanks!
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