For the past 9 years I have overseen and managed our Generation X and Y research at Creative Strategies mostly from a technology usage and adaption standpoint. Many of our clients in the high tech industry from companies that make computers, to mobile devices to TV’s have requested my research as they seek to understand this demographic that is highly technical and demands things from their electronics that other generations can’t imagine.
Just about 3 years ago many of our clients
started to understand that they had to begin building products that met the
needs of the most technological generation. It is challenging to constantly push the innovation
envelope especially with a demographic that doesn’t stay impressed with
innovations for long but is instead constantly searching for the latest and
greatest technology. This stands
as a challenge in the face of companies who primarily followed a model of
innovating every 18 to 24 month’s not every 6 months. This challenge still remains however one thing has
become abundantly clear from my research in this space. This generation communicates unlike any
seen previously.
About 4 years ago we really started to see
texting find its groove with a lot of the youth we were observing. Today the average teen sends and
receives about 2,800 texts a month.
Among our group of young trendsetters this was about the average for
them 4 years ago. One girl
in fact had a Nokia device she had for 6 months and the numbers on the keys
were completely rubbed off from such heavy texting.
Now the fact that this was happening was
interesting as we were seeing social habits and behaviors changing but I was
very interested into the psychological reason why this demographic preferred to
communicate this way as opposed to talking on the phone.
Several interesting things came out of my
work in this area.
When a demographic grows up exposed to
heavy amounts of multi media they develop the capability to process large
amounts of information very quickly.
This means kids who watched a lot of TV
growing up, played video games, etc developed a mental capability to process
things quickly. This assisted in attention deficit disorder and boredom from a
lack of mental stimulation but also gave them the ability to multitask
extremely well. My most
compelling conclusion from this observation is that when they talk on the phone
they have to focus on talking to one person at one time. However when they text they can
talk to many people at one time.
Not only that but the conversation can go on all day.
Now many sociologists fear that this is
harming their actual social and conversation skills however I argue it is
strengthening them. Not one
of the large number of kids we have observed doing massive amounts of texting
is a social misfit or outcast.
As a matter of fact many of them are quite popular. By leveraging a new communication
medium such as text messaging, a new skill around managing conversations and
the people those conversation are with will be an asset in the work force. Furthermore a recent article in
the New York Times highlighted a trend we observed as well which was this
demographic regularly “hugged” as a form of saying hello. We saw kids hug when they
first saw each other at school or at the mall. We basically observed the vast majority of them hug
when they saw each other again after a prolonged time of not seeing each other.
If their actual physical social interactions were being harmed why would they be so quick to physically embrace upon first physical contact for the day? I would argue text messaging is strengthening their relationships due to how much they know about each other throughout the day without having to actually see them face to face.
I can sum it up with some lessons I
learned doing research for Microsoft for XBOX Live before the service
started. We came away observing
that this demographic desires to go through life together even when they are
not physically together. Any
communication medium that allows them to stay connected to their social groups
while not physically being together will be utilized.
When asked if they prefer to text their
friends or actually hang out with them unanimously they preferred to hang out
face to face however the desire was to hang out as a group more then just hang
out one on one. This
demographic all though capable of one on one social interaction prefers a group
setting.
One thing we know about humans is that
they are social beings. I do
not believe that this demographic is moving away from that core human
desire. They are however
finding technologies that allow them to enhance this social nature and are
seeking out new ways of socializing. Technology I believe will add to and enhance our core
desire of humans to socialize and communicate.
Text messaging and social networks are the
just the beginning.