What Are the Kids Up To These Days? Apparently Not Social Networking

As if the deaths of Michael Jackson and John Hughes weren’t enough to make you feel old, yet another study has been released saying that social media is quickly becoming a golden oldie. This from Fast Company:

Basically as the oldies are moving in, the youth is moving out. And, frankly, that should be no surprise. It’s pretty standard teenage/young person behavior to prefer to occupy social niches that are different to those the old folks use–cue the image of the standard rebellious teenager donning the oh-so-unique black T-shirt of the noisiest band of the day. This is borne out by the remaining statistic from the research–kids under 16, presumably still in the early stages of rebellion, social networking is still as popular as ever… Analyzing data from 250,000 internet users in the U.S., Nielsen found that 25% of users were under 25. But only 16% of Twitter users were in that age group.

Actually what that tells us is that kids stop social networking during their highschool and early college before picking it back up again. Meaning that Twitter is not losing relevance but has merely gone mainstream. And while this makes it as difficult as ever for the cannibalizing advertisers to figure out what the kids are thinking these days, it also makes perfect sense. Whose teenage years aren’t almost entirely devoted to keeping the powers-that-be from knowing what you are up to? Perhaps the kids have all gone old school and are using the phone to communicate.

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