Teens Love Facebook, Ignore Twitter, TV & Newspapers

Teenagers don't read the newspaper, they don't watch much TV except for their favorite shows and they aren't into Twitter. What they are into is social media like Facebook. They love their cell phones, they like movies, they go to concerts but they don't want to pay for music or anything else for that matter. They love their computers and computer games.

That's the summary from 15-year-old Matthew Robson who wrote a report on teen-age media consumption for Morgan Stanley in a wham-bam take it or leave it kind of voice that makes you believe what he's saying even though it's not based on any reports, cites few statistics and is from a kid who's British.

The bombshell from the "report" seems to be that teens don't use Twitter. But as The Guardian's PDA blog points out The Pew Internet and American Life Project found "the median age of Twitter users in the US was 31, higher than 26 for Facebook and 27 for MySpace."

I'm also not shocked that Robson says teens don't read newspapers. It only backs up what I've seen in my own classroom where last semester only one student read a hard copy of a newspaper and only a handful read the newspaper at all. Most students said they get their news from John Stewart and Steven Colbert,if they get any news at all. And these are journalism students!

Teens don't listen to radio much but when they do it's for the music but that's becoming less so since they can now stream music online, Robson says.

I thought Robson's statement that teens don't watch much TV was striking. He seems to be saying that teens will watch certain shows during certain seasons but then will switch off for weeks at a time. I find this heartening but I'm a bit skeptical. This would mean that all those TV guzzling children and tweens suddenly become more discerning TV viewers when they enter adolescence. I hope he's right. He adds that they hate ads and switch offf when ads are on. Yahoo!

As for newspapers, Robson says teens don't read them because of coste but will pick up free newspapers. Again, I'm a bit skeptical of this because presumably most teens are still living at home where their parents foot the cost of newspapers. But it makes sense to me when Robson says that teens are more likely to choose tabloids. He says it's because they're compact and easier to carry. I'm guessing the racy content and Page 6 girls don't hurt either.

I also found it interesting that Robson says teens don't use paper directories. Again, this makes sense. I think most of us, myself included, turn to the Internet before we search for the Yellow Pages.

Another nugget was Robson's assertion that teens enjoy and support viral marketing because they find it funny and interesting. But they hate web ads such as pop-up and find them "extremely annoying." Join the club, teenagers.

We all know that teens don't want to pay for music and so Robson's comments here don't break much ground. He states that they also use itunes but don't like it because of the cost.

Another good bit of news is that teens love the movies, according to Robson, and sometimes go just for the experience. He states that older teens don't go because of the price (British theaters charge full price above age 15). In the U.S., I'm pretty sure kids over 12 pay full price but I've seen movie theaters full of kids so this probably depends on the wealth of the kids.

As we all know, teens love their mobile phones and Robson tells us that they prefer pay-as-you-go phones because of the price (assuming they're paying for it themselves).
While teens love to text, they don't use the Internet on their phone because it's too expensive, Robson says.

Finally, Robson says that as we know, teens love their computers but prefer stand-alone computer games such as the Wii and Xbox to games on the PC.

I think the report is very useful as a snapshot. Whether it's a prescription for today's media, I don't know. If we had a teen write about teen-age eating preferences, we'd no doubt find out that teens like pizza, fries and ice-cream and don't like vegetables. That's good to know but it doesn't necessarily portend the end of vegetables.

Thank you to Rutgers Professor Steve Miller for pointing out this report.
*Photo by Maggic Smith, freedigitalphotos.net