(This was posted June 5, 2009 on my blog "Positively Media" at PsychologyToday.com) Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "No man should travel until he has learned the language of the country he visits. Otherwise he voluntarily makes himself a great baby - so helpless and so ridiculous." Think of the tech-saavy younger generation as another country with a different language. Their lives are inseparable from technology and they are connected to each other and to information flows in ways many of us will never understand. We can learn to speak their language or we can look ridiculous and irrelevant. No where is learning to speak the language of technology more important than when you're trying to educate young people. At a time when one in five American students drops out of high school, we parents and educators need to work on our language skills. This is why I love to see educational institutions embrace media technologies. At Azusa Pacific University (APU), my friend David Peck is … [Read more...]
The Native Tongue of Teens: Social Media
Move over Michael Jordan: Shoes are Out, Cell Phones are In
The study “Teenagers: A Generation Unplugged” by the wireless trade association CTIA and Harris Interactive reports that cell phones have become a vital part of a teen’s identity. The coolness of the cell phone is considered a marker for popularity and status and having a phone is essential to a teen's social life. (While most teens agreed that the iPhone was the coolest phone, most teens had a 'conventional' cell phone. Few could manage the high cost of the phone and the rates charged by AT&T.) The study results were announced at the CTIA Fall 2008 trade show. (See the overview at CNET.com) Photo credit: Local12. com The importance of a cell phone to teen identity matters to cell phone makers and network operators because teens are a huge demographic. (A recent CNET review is entitled "Top Cell Phones for Teens".) In fact, four out of 5 teens carry a cell phone with total cell phone owners up 40% since 2004. A Nielsen study reported that the average age of … [Read more...]
