Here are two posts that should be required reading for all parents of young children and teenagers, as well as all marketing professionals who would like to make their products appeal more to young people through social media marketing programmes.
As we often discuss at Internet Safety School, it can be really difficult to see the world through the eyes of digital natives. Which is why I’m delighted to have been sent links to a brace of blog posts written by a 19-year-old male at The University of Texas at Austin. He shares his carefully considered views of many social networking sites including:
- Facebook: “It’s dead to us,… an awkward family dinner party we can’t really leave”
- Instagram: “By far the most used social media outlet for my age group,… hasn’t been flooded with the older generation yet”
- Twitter: “A lot of us simply do not understand the point of Twitter”
- Snapchat: “Quickly becoming the most used social media network,… where we can really be ourselves”
- YikYak: “Everyone’s on it before class starts,… and everyone’s on it during class”
- WhatsApp: “You download it when you go abroad,… then you delete it”
- YouTube: “For an avid internet user it’s almost impossible to ignore YouTube”
- Vine: “Many of my peers left the network after their Vines had little interaction”
- Google+: “I personally do not know anyone who actively uses Google+”
- Tinder: “It’s huge for those in college,… one of the more talked about applications currently on the market”
- Quora: “Quora is an amazing social network that no one knows about”
- Myspace: “Will always be the butt of a joke”
Great stuff, well written and insightful. Of course, it’s only one person’s view, but I’m greatly indebted to Andrew Watts for sharing his unique teenager’s perspective on our digital world.
Read the full posts (hosted on Medium, of course) at the links below: