- by Alena Hitzemann, Associate Web Editor
Two weeks ago, a fifteen year old Londoner named Matthew Robson began a fortnight-long work experience program at Morgan Stanley. He was placed in the media and internet research team, given a list of tasks, and told to go get 'em. One of those tasks was to compile a report on how teenagers, his peers, consume media. He wrote it in a day. Less than a week later, the press, the twitterverse and the blogosphere are all abuzz with the implications of the "revelations" contained in Matthew's report, How Teenagers Consumer Media.
The UK Guardian trumpets the "flurry of interest from media executives and investors" caused by the report.
The Times calls Robson "the talk of Tokyo, Wall Street and the City," and claims that "Fund managers, CEOs and analysts are poring over his report."
According to CNBC, the report's "striking claims" are "making waves among media executives and investors."
Bloomberg.com quotes "the analysts" as claiming the report contained the “clearest and most thought-provoking insights we have seen.”
I find this all slightly ridiculous. I tend to agree with Time's Dan Fletcher, who summed up his opinion of the hubbub over the report in one word: toss.
Maybe that's a bit harsh. I don't literally think that the report is garbage. I think Mr. Robson (do you call a 15 yr old "Mr."?) deserves serious props for getting a good internship and taking advantage of it. He clearly did his job well, contacted a wealth of primary sources and put together a not-too-terribly written report (although, as an English major, I have a hard time with all of the members of the press out there- writers, no less!- who seem to be implying that it's equivalent to a professionally created document. I mean, come on. He used the word "release" instead of "realize" in one of the most frequently quoted passages. Let's not make this out to be more than it is. *takes off Grammar Police hat.* )
His content is mildly interesting. Turns out that teenagers have short attention spans, enjoy video games, won't pay for music, love their cell phones, and - this is the biggie, apparently - couldn't care less about Twitter. It's a good snapshot into the youth psyche. But here is my big question: why is this news? Isn't this all completely, blatantly obvious? Don't any of these investors, analysts, fund managers, CEOs and the rest HAVE teenagers? Haven't they noticed all the advertising directed at teens that is predicated on this very information?
And more importantly, why do they care? Is Morgan Stanley selling financial packages to sophomores in high school? If teens aren't your target audience, as is the case with many of the marketers so hungrily devouring this report, then who cares that they prefer Limewire to iTunes and think tweeting is for old farts?
The answer is, they think the teens are trendsetters. They seem to believe that (a) what this demographic is doing now, they will also be doing in ten years when they are old enough to spend serious bucks, and/or, (b) what is cool to teenagers will soon become cool to adults, changing the adult consciousness towards media consumption.
And that's where I disagree. That's where this whole hoopla gets really silly to me.
For instance, let's look at Gen Y ten years ago, when we were Matthew's age. I think I was pretty typical of my generation. I hung out on my parents' computer, the family computer, because my friends and I didn't have our own laptops. Internet was painfully slow. It was the heyday of Napster, and like today's teens, we did not pay for music... of course, it took somewhere around 10 minutes to download one song, so our pirating was probably quite a bit slower than our modern counterparts. I was given a Zack Morris-style cell phone for my 15th birthday, and I think it had somewhere around 200 minutes/month on it. I used it exclusively to make calls, and not very long ones- more along the lines of "Mom, I'm sleeping over at Lucy's, see you tomorrow, bye," than protracted conversations. There was no Facebook, there was no Twitter. We did instant message; first it was ICQ, then AIM. That too was slow. All in all, technology played a role in my life, but not a particularly huge or important one.
Clearly times have changed. But I changed with them. So did the rest of Gen Y. As we grew up, our actions evolved along with technology, trends and personal maturity. I no longer use AIM because I now chat on Facebook. I no longer download music illegally because I'm conscious of the implications to the industry and the artist. My cell phone- probably a quarter of the size of that first one- is now my primary means of communication and I couldn't use up my minutes if I tried. This picture looks nothing like it did when I was fifteen.
Furthermore, I really don't think that teenage trends will significantly affect adult actions. Fifteen year olds are coming from an entirely different place. Things become cool for different reasons: because they're free, and when you're in high school, you have no money; because you have an abundance of free time in which to play video games; because it's easy to circumvent and avoid adults. These reasons don't translate to adult coolness, at least in my book.The fact that teens aren't on Twitter has nothing to do with my efforts to use that particular tool to gather and disseminate knowledge or to promote my work and my company.
The information that Matthew Robson presented is certainly relevant to anyone marketing to teens. But I really think the buck stops there. Who knows where they'll be by the time they're buying into hedge funds and enterprise software- somehow, I don't think it will involve Twitter.
The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.
to start the fire.
