Youth and Technology

Youngsters of today’s society are unbelievably overtaken by marvels of modern technology.

More than ever before, technology influences young people, how they communicate, how they learn, and how they spend their time. Ranging from the Internet, the cell phone user, the video gamer, to the Ipod user, the youths of today have one. Children have either one or all of these modern toys.

Whether it is gaming, surfing the Internet, or talking on the cell phone, the youths today would be lost without having one of these things. These gadgets and toys have a major impact with the youths and help define their identities.

This isn’t 1989. The Pepsi Generation is over. The 21st Century is the era of the Social Customer.
The idea that you could create a Big Idea and dig deep to communicate that idea to specific market segments is no longer as effective as it once was. People don’t wake up thinking about your brand anymore. Today, the losers are the brands that want it BIG. These brands want to push their story onto the “consumer” or the “end user” and use new media to find innovative ways to do it. The winners are the ones that go deeper. These brands - companies like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google and Starbucks are redefining how we understand the customer.

7 Principles Of The Techno-Youth

Principle #1:
The Techno-Youth is about social motivations not social media
If we want to understand this generation, the answers lie in understanding their psychology and motivation first. Social motivation reveals why insights and trends happen.
It’s easy to look at social media as the answer but simply making media “social” doesn’t make it more social by default.

Principle #2:
We are social by design.
They are programmed to connect.
Their 2 most basic social needs are
• the need to belong
• the need to be significant
So strong are these needs that life without social connectivity can be unbearable. When unable to feel belonging and significance, we experience negative emotions often resorting to what, appears to the observer, irrational behavior but in reality has a more logical underpinning in the Social Code. The Social Code shapes our lives and, therefore, every interaction from communication to how and why we buy.

Principle #3:
Offline is more important than online
Even in the digital age, face to face communica¬tion remains king. While this generation may be comfortable with modern communication technology, technol¬ogy is a means not an end. They text to hook up. Even the most tech- savvy of the younger generation use their online tools to improve offline interaction.
Concepts like “Digital Native” or “born digital” confuse means and end. The “the medium is the message” no longer applies to the millennial generation. Youth don’t love technol¬ogy, they love what technology does for them.

Principle #4:
The Disconnected Generation wants relationships
The next generation care more about the inefficiencies of daily life because these inefficiencies are the meaning they seek. They want Social Space, space away from helicopter parents, zero-tolerance educators and future employers. The basic interaction and social fabric of our lives afforded to previous generations is being lost and youth are leading the charge to reclaim these basic privileges through the products they buy. That’s why we’re willing to pay more to stand in line and wait for ours out the back of a one-man food truck. Media often labels this generation as the most “connected” referring to their use of technology and “hyper-connectivity”. In reality, this is the least connected generation of all.

Principle #5:
90% of Communication is Passive
Consumer psychology shows how much of our social meaning is communicated through mundane behaviours. Just because we don’t see it or it doesn’t appear obvious doesn’t mean that it’s meaningless.
Think of it as ape-like grooming, where we sit around in large groups doing nothing particularly constructive or measurable except reinforce these peer group relationships. When parents walk into the back room and see their teen children “hanging out” with friends they are often perplexed by how unproductive this behavior is. They just sit there, hanging around listening to music. They don’t even seem to be saying much. “Hanging out” behavior is passive communica¬tion manifested on a global basis and it continues to trouble adults who fail to see its social purpose.

Principle #5:
Everything can be a Social Tool
Years of mobile industry research into how young people use smartphones highlights how every-thing is a Social Tool. People don’t buy stuff, they buy what stuff does for them. The mobile phone is a powerful social tool but not the only one available. People will always weigh up the value of a social tool in comparison to other available.

Principle #7: 
The more you track the Techno-Youth, the less you understand them
Tracking consumer behaviour in marketing may fool insights teams that more data is better. If you want to better understand buying behavior, we can’t rely on more data. Insights come from an emotional connection that evades the transparent world of Big Data.
Students send pictures of themselves making funny faces, sticking out their tongues or virtual doodles made from the back of classmate’s heads. It appears like the usual misbehavior of teens but to teens it’s a key composite of their social dynamic. Interaction is spontaneous and free from the scrutiny of teachers, parents and employees to be. And that means, Big Data misses out because it can’t track what’s not shared in the public domain.
The idea that teens don’t care about privacy is a myth perpetuated by Big Data, polling companies and advertisers alike. It’s a myth that exists in the public domain to promote the agenda of these organisations. The more people believe the ‘youth don’t care about privacy’ myth, the more the purveyors of the myth have license to invade the private lives of our children.