Teens

I want to start today by pointing to a post by Jonathan Chait at The New Republic. Chait attempts to refute the suggestion the Wall Street Journal put forth in an editorial claiming that the minimum wage increase was to blame for rising youth unemployment numbers. The chart to the left appeared in the Journal to augment the editorial board's argument.

Chait draws on analysis from University of Michigan political scientist Brendan Nyhan explaining that the unemployment increase in ALL age demographics undoes the Journal's argument. The Journal can't seem to distinguish between correlation and causation, Nyhan writes.

While it's certainly plausible that the increases in the minimum wage over the last three years have worsened teen unemployment, correlation doesn't prove causation. Any variable that trended in one direction during the current economic downturn will be correlated with the unemployment rate among teens or any other group.

More importantly, unemployment is rising across the board, which cuts against the WSJ's hypothesis that the minimum wage is having a particularly devastating effect on teens.

Though the Wall Street Journal might like to think they can downplay youth unemployment by practicing amateur science, they've made their ignorance quite apparent. It's another example of a contribution to our political dialogue that misleads citizens in an attempt to assist the right-wing conspiracy.

Pew's study on Social Media and Young Adults has some really interesting findings: teens don't blog or tweet. According to the study, 14% of online teens blog. This is down from around 28% just a few years ago. As for Twitter, only 8% of people 12-17 use the service.

The study also found that 93% of young adults go online, with 63% of those using the internet daily. This is comparable to only 38% for those over the age of 65.

So what does this mean? We know that teens use the internet, regularly. We know they are active on social networks - they post comments (83% of online teens say they've posted comments on a friends' pictures), they communicate (although less teens now say they use social networking to contact friends), and more. They do not, however, create that much content.

Only 38% of teens share content in general, 21% remix content, and once again - only 14% blog. For adults, the numbers are even worse. The difference comes in the fact that the numbers for adults have come up in recent years. Teens, on the other hand, created more just a few years ago.

Some, such as Ben Parr, have come to the conclusion that teens just don't have the life experiences needed to create quality content. They are simply consuming. Even though I am a teen, I tend to agree with this rather negative view...Most teens are not interested in creating content. Instead, they are simply consuming.

Members of my generation are consuming more information in a day than one might have come across in a lifetime in centuries past. They're reading, watching, and listening. The number of teens who simply USE the internet (93%) are huge. These young people will be heading into college and jobs with a new and unique outlook, gained by exposure to such huge amounts of information.

Overall, the study is interesting, but there isn't much to feel bad about if you're a teen. The fact we're able to consume so much more content than previous generations means we will be creating much more high quality content of our own in the future.

A (relatively) new report by Nielsen (pdf) gives us a look into how teens are using media, and the results are a little surprising:

The notion that teens are too busy texting and Twittering to be engaged with traditional media is exciting, but false.

To develop the best strategy around teens and media, start by challenging popular assumptions about teens. Don’t focus on the outliers, but on the macro-level trends of media and preferences for the segment. The averages will show you that teens can often be reached by the same means as their parents.

In this report, “How Teens Use Media,” we debunk the myths and give you the hard facts.

• Teens are NOT abandoning TV for new media: In fact, they watch more TV than ever, up 6% over the past five years in the U.S.
• Teens love the Internet…but spend far less time browsing than adults: Teens spend 11 hours and 32 minutes
  per month online—far below the average of 29 hours and 15 minutes.
• Teens watch less online video than most adults, but the ads are highly engaging to them: Teens spend 35% less time watching online video than adults 25–34, but recall ads better when watching TV shows online than they do on television.
• Teens read newspapers, listen to the radio and even like advertising more than most: Teens who recall TV ads are 44% more likely to say they liked the ad.
• Teens play video games, but are as excited about play-along music games and car-racing games as they are about violent ones: Just two of their top five most-anticipated games since 2005 are rated “Mature.”
• Teens’ favorite TV shows, top websites and genre preferences across media are mostly the same as those of their parents: For U.S. teens, American Idol was the top show in 2008, Google the top website and general dramas are a preferred TV genre for teens around the world.

This all sounds very counterintuitive - and one might like to doubt the veracity of stats promoting the television industry distributed by Nielsen - but the report is actually quite evenhanded and makes a point very similar to what we've been saying at Future Majority for years: young people are just like older people, and if you target them, they will respond. Whereas we're talking about voter engagement tactics, they are talking purely about media consumption habits (though to be sure there is overlap between the two categories).

Perhaps the biggest takeaway for me is this: teens embrace new media not at the cost of traditional media, but in supplement it.

Here's what that looks like in chart form:

Also interesting - but less a focus of the study - is the extent to which the data points to the 18 - 29 age window as the time in which many of the media habits normally associated with teens kick in, and in fact, when it comes to internet usage, it is people over 35 who are the heaviest users. The one new media category in which stereotypes seem to hold true is in text messaging, in which teens are by far the most prolific users.

Interesting stuff that I'm sure will help campaigns and nonprofits better target teens in the future.