Thoughts on the Kaiser Family Foundation's Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds.

Thoughts on the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Generation M²: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds.

I read with interest this fascinating follow-up to the Kaiser Family Foundation 2004 report Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18-Year-Olds. Their results are precisely in line with what we have found in all of our research on thousands of children and adolescents in the urban Los Angeles area. Although their media consumption data are considerably lower than ours that is likely due to the way each of us ask the questions. Regardless, we, too, have found that media consumption is on the rise among young people as is multitasking. Much of our research is highlighted in my new book, Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way They Learn which is scheduled to be released in March 2010 by Palgrave Macmillan.

Here are my thoughts on this excellent report: NOTE: All of our research can be found in publications and presentations housed at http://www.Me-MySpace-and-I.com.

1. NAMING THIS GENERATION: I have always been opposed to calling children and adolescents Generation Y or Millennials or even Generation Z since none of those names really reflect their characteristics. KFF has called them Generation M² where the M stands for “Media” and the “squared” reflects the rapid rise in media consumption since their earlier label of Generation M. In our research group we have referred to the generation of young adults now in college or the workforce, and born in the 1980s, the Net Generation to reflect the impact of the Internet in their lives. Based on our research, we have discovered a separate generation, identical to KFF’s Generation M² which we label the “iGeneration” with the “i” representing both the types of mobile technologies being heralded by children and adolescents (iPhone, iPod, Wii, iTunes) plus the fact that these technologies are mostly “individualized” in the way they are used. This label is echoed in KFF’s statement that “The increase in media use is driven in large part by ready access to mobile devices like cell phones and iPods.”

2. INCREASED MEDIA CONSUMPTION: In our studies of thousands of children, teens, and young adults we have found massive quantities of media being consumed on a daily basis. In our studies we ask, in online anonymous surveys, about the hours of daily use of a variety of activities including being online, using the computer other than going online, listening to music, playing video games, talking on the telephone, IMing and chatting, texting, sending and receiving e-mail, and watching television. We compute a total, being cognizant that many of those media activities are being done simultaneously through multitasking. Our estimates are quite a bit higher than KFF’s study data, but they paint the same picture: Children and teens are spending nearly all of their day using media and technology. The following chart gives the total amount of reported hours of total media use for four generations: Baby Boomers, Generation X, Net Generation, and the iGeneration broken down into four age ranges. Clearly, kids are using media most of their waking hours.

3. MULTITASKING: We have done several studies of multitasking, again by querying people of all generations about their media usage. One way we assess multitasking is to ask adults (and parents of children about their children’s media use) which tasks out of a long list of media and nontechnology-based activities they would choose to do at the same time when they had “free time.” [We have also asked this question of multitasking in other domains such as studying for a final exam or writing an important report.] The results are displayed in the chart below. I think it is clear that the teens are the biggest multitaskers as well as the larger media consumers as seen in the graph above. These data, coupled with other information gleaned from our interviews, has led us to designate these teens and children as a new “iGeneration.”

4. MULTITASKING ACTIVITES: In another study we examined the likelihood of multitasking across generations. Identical to the KFF study we found that each generation found it most difficult to multitask with the same tasks with music being the easiest followed by surfing the web. Video games presented the most multitasking difficulty. The graph below shows all of the results of this study.

5. PARENTS AND MEDIA RULES: In our 2008 publication, The Association of Parenting Style and Child Age with Parental Limit Setting and Adolescent MySpace Behavior, we presented the data from two studies -- in June and September of 2006 -- of more than 400 parent-teen pairs showing, among other results, that:

• 38% of parents had not seen their teen’s MySpace page and an additional 14% almost never viewed that page resulting in more than half the parents paying no attention to their teen’s online activities.

• When asked directly about technology rules, only 36% of teens had limits on computer use and a mere 25% had limits on MySpace activities.

6. MEDIA IN THE HOME … AND ELSEWHERE: Based on our data from the 2008 study plus additional data we have collected since then, the following depicts the prevalence of media and technology available to children and teens at home and in other locations:

• a. In the 2006 study, 50% of teens used a computer in their bedroom.

• Since that study we have looked at thousands more children and teens and found that more than half of all 4- to 8-year-olds have a television in their bedroom and more than half have a video game console as well. When you look at older children and teens, the numbers climb. For example, more than 70% of teens have a computer in their bedroom, and more than 70% of tweens and younger teens also have a bedroom video game console.

• More than 80% of teens have their own cell phone; 90% of older teens. Strikingly, 50% of tweens have a cell phone!

• The iPod appears to be ubiquitous with 65% of tweens, and 85% of teens owning one.

• When tweens are in the car with a parent at least some of the time they do the following media activities. Clearly they are not only consuming media at home but also as a passenger in the car leading to the question: “When do they communicate with their parents?”

• When tweens are out to dinner with their parents they seem to spend more time communicating since they only use these technologies about one-fourth of the time. At least that is encouraging!

7. MEDIA AND HEALTH: We recently used an anonymous, online survey to assess parental reports of the health and media usage in three age groups – 4-to 8-year-olds, 9- to 12-year-olds, and 13- to 18-year-olds. We were looking specifically to see if media use predicted health in four areas: physical symptomology, psychological problems, attention difficulties, and behavioral problems. We tested a very specific model to answer a very specific question: DOES MEDIA USAGE OF ANY TYPE PREDICT ILL-BEING (psychological, physical, behavioral, attentional, or all combined) AFTER FACTORING OUT ANY DEMOGRAPHICS (parent and child age and gender, parent education, median income, parent BMI, and ethnic background) AND AFTER FACTORING OUT UNHEALTHY EATING. Results were dismal at best showing that consuming more media is predictive of poor health on all four dimensions:

• For 4- to 8-year-old children all media combined predicted every type of ill-being AND amount of television viewing predicted physical problems.

• For 9- to 12-year-old tweens, combined daily media predicted physical ill-being and video game playing (which peaks in this age bracket) predicted all attentional and physical problems.

• For 12- to 18-year-old teens, nearly every form of media consumption predicted nearly every form of ill-being.

Overall it is clear that we are all finding the same results when it comes to young people and media:

• They are consuming a heavy daily media diet.
• They are multitasking at all times with many forms of media.
• They are not just using media in the home but in other locations such as restaurants and the car.
• Media is negatively impacting health among children, tweens, and teens.
• Parents are being lax about setting limits and guidelines on media usage.

It is time for parents to step up to the plate and help their children and teens deal responsibly with their media consumption. In my book Me, MySpace, and I: Parenting the Net Generation, I outline many parenting strategies including a T.A.L.K. model of parenting that does not rely on punishment except in very specific situations. If the positively focused T.A.L.K. Model is not working and punishment is necessary, it should begin with small penalties escalating slowly if they are not working.

Welcome to the iGeneration!

Defining and understanding a generation of Americans has always been difficult until years after the generation ends. Although there is universal agreement on the Baby Boomer generation (1946-1964) and most people agree that Generation X started in 1965 and ended around 1979, after that it gets murky. In my research and writing I believe that the “Net Generation” started in 1980 when those future Internet users were born. Others have called this Generation Y, Millennial Generation, and Generation M, but I think that the defining feature has always been the importance of the Internet in the lives of these children, teens, and young adults.

Right behind the Net Generation is the “iGeneration” named after all the available devices with an “i” – iPod, iPhone, iTouch, iEverything – plus these children's thirst for any new mobile technology. Little research has been done on these preschool and elementary school-aged children, but our interviews with parents of more than 2,000 of them show that they are embracing technology and media much earlier than their older brothers and sisters. In fact, these children are getting their first taste of personal technology often before they can even sit up without assistance. To put it simply, children have grown up in an environment where technology is everywhere and much of it is invisible. Most children and adolescents have grown up with the largest storehouse of information in history – the Internet – and from an early age they learned to play online games, send e-mail to grandma and grandpa, and watch videos. As they got older, they learned to Google anything they wanted to know, MapQuest directions, go to Wikipedia for school reports, and use dictionary.com for definitions. Many have never used a card catalog, a “real” encyclopedia, or Webster’s Dictionary. Some have never set foot in a library other than as a place to study after school. To children and teenagers, the Internet has always been just a click away and, as you will see from the data we have collected over the years, they use it for a variety of purposes that are beyond the scope of anything imagined just a decade ago.

At the George Marsh Applied Cognition Laboratory we have been doing extensive research on generational differences over the past few years and have chronicled our work on my website (www.Me-MySpace-and-I.com) with PowerPoint presentations and journal articles. We are particularly interested in similarities and differences between this new, young generation of kids and the youngest members of the Net Generation – those who are still in middle school or high school.

The table below shows the number of hours elementary and secondary school students spend using a variety of media combined from several of our studies of thousands of children, teens, and their parents. In each of our studies we ask about the use of a variety of technologies. The teenagers supplied their own estimates while parents of the younger children provided the information. The table includes the core technologies that are examined in all of our research studies while some of our other studies explore the use of additional technologies and media as they become part of the youth culture.

The data in this table, which are very consistent across other major research studies, are striking as you see technology and media consumption rise from roughly five and a half hours a day for the youngest children to more than 20 hours a day for the older teens. Clearly, teenagers are not spending their entire day using each technology one at a time. They have mastered the art of multitasking, allowing them to watch television, text message friends, listen to music, surf the web, chat on MySpace and Facebook, watch YouTube videos, and more, all at the same time. For now, however, it is important to understand that the data in this table reflect the staggering amount of media that our children are consuming on a daily basis.

Before looking at specific media activities of the younger generation, it is instructive to look at what “older” generations are doing technologically. According to our research studies, Baby Boomers spend about nine and a half hours daily with media, Generation Xers are immersed in media 15 hours per day and older Net Geners (18- to 29-years-old) consume nearly 20 media hours per day. So, all generations are using media and technology with the iGeneration and younger Net Geners leading the way.

Returning to our four groups of students, several things stand out in the table. For one, there is a major jump in online activity between the pre-teen and teen years. While 9- to 12-year olds are online an hour a day, their older siblings spend more than double that amount visiting websites in addition to four hours communicating online through e-mail, instant messaging and chatting and five-plus hours using the cell phone for calls and text messaging. What is on their computer screens while they are surfing through cyberspace? High school students spend upwards of 30 hours a week online, mostly for entertainment and socializing with friends. They spend one to two hours a day communicating on social networks such as MySpace and Facebook.

Another interesting trend is the increasing use of all communication tools including e-mail, instant messages, chats, telephone calls, and text messages. All told, 5- to 8-year-olds communicate “electronically” a half hour a day which increases to nearly two and a half hours for 9- to 12-year-olds, more than six hours for 13- to 15-year-olds, and a whopping eight and a half hours a day for the 16- to 18-year-olds. In addition, teenagers are now spending more time sending text messages from their cell phones than actually talking on them. According to a 2009 national survey by Nielsen Mobile, U.S. teens send or receive an average of 2,899 text messages a month compared to making or receiving only 191 cell phone calls. A Harris Interactive national survey of teens has even shown that 47% of the 2,089 nationally-sampled teens could compose text messages blindfolded.

This is an extremely important issue in understanding how best to parent and educate our youth. Communication is a key element in their daily lives. Several other trends are obvious and noteworthy. Music becomes increasingly important as children move into adolescence, as does text messaging. Interestingly, watching television appears to be more popular among the younger teens than any other group as is video game playing.

Another issue concerning the proliferation of media in our children’s lives concerns where they actually use their media. Universally, psychologists and educators caution against allowing young children to ensconce themselves in bedroom “TechnoCocoons” for a variety of reasons including parental monitoring and safety. However, my most recent studies of more than 1,300 parents of children and teens between the ages of 6 months and 18 years indicates that many younger children are indeed owning and using technology behind closed bedroom doors. The figure below – from a keynote speech I gave recently to pre-trial and parole officers to help them understand the generations of offenders – shows the percentages of private/personal technology usage.

Several numbers leap out of this table. First, more than one-third of children under the age of 5 have a television in their bedrooms as do two-thirds of children, pre-teens and teenagers. Second, more than half the school-aged children – up to the early teens – have a video game console and a handheld video game player. Half the pre-teen students have their own cell phone and iPod which increases to nearly all of the teenagers. Third, although only one in four 9- to 12-year-olds have a computer in their bedrooms, that increases to nearly half of all high school students.

One thing that is clear from all of our research is that there may be two halves of the Net Generation, those who have graduated high school and those who are still in secondary school. There appears to be striking commonalities in the way elementary and secondary students embrace media and technology and it all surrounds their online and communication world. They are constantly “wired” – or perhaps I should say “unwired” since most of the technologies they use are wireless – and they are omnipresent in their cyberworlds.

In my new book, Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and How They Learn (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), I argue that these are all technologies that are available for educators to consider as delivery vehicles for classroom content and homework. Combining the bedroom technologies with the extensive media use by these students, leaves a variety of vehicles that educators might choose to use for delivering virtual content, having virtual classroom discussions, and completing assignments from anywhere in the world. The time has come for us to put together the solid, research-based ideas that I have described in this new book and form a coherent plan for supercharging education. We now have the knowhow to provide an educational experience – both inside and outside the classroom – that is motivating, captivating, and engaging. We can no longer ask our children to live in a world where they are immersed in technology in all parts of their lives except when they go to school. We must rewire education or we risk losing this generation of media-immersed, tech-savvy students. As put so aptly by one educator:

"There is a persistent gap between how today's digital natives learn in schools and how they work and interact outside of school -- a trend that underscores the need for districts to keep pace with technological advances and adapt to students' learning needs."

A Round of Applause for the Internet Safety Technical Task Force for a Job Well Done

Headline from the New York Times
January 13, 2009
“Report Calls Online Threats to Children Overblown”

HISTORY: “The Internet Safety Technical Task Force was created in February 2008 in accordance with the Joint Statement on Key Principles of Social Networking Safety announced in January 2008 by the Attorneys General Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking and MySpace. The scope of the Task Force's inquiry was to consider those technologies that industry and end users - including parents - can use to help keep minors safer on the Internet.” [Quoted from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University]

REPORT: Today the task force published its final report, a comprehensive 278 page document including reports from both the Technical Advisory Board and the Research Advisory Board (of which I am a member).

COMMENTS: Several points in the report were striking and important:

1. The Research Advisory Board completed a thorough literature review (included in the report) which concluded that based on the best peer-reviewed research, using both national and regional samples, the moral panic caused by the media in general, and television shows such as NBC’s “To Catch a Predator,” are completely overblown. The research showed consistently that the actual threat of adult predators enticing unsuspecting teens into sexual encounters was essentially nonexistent. When teens are approached online with a sexual solicitation, most often it is from other adolescents and not sexual offenders or trolling adults. In addition, as all of my research has shown, the report confirmed that even when teens are approached, more than 90% of the responses are appropriate.

2. In spite of the research showing that sexual predators are not roaming the Internet, the news media and other agencies continue to wave a red flag touting these dangers. In a study in progress by my research team, we are examining the mentions of various online issues such as sexual predators, cyberbullying, Internet addition, and pornography with respect to both the Internet in general and MySpace in particular. Using circulation figures, we chose the top 20 newspapers, television news shows, and general interest magazines and tallied the number of times any of these issues were mentioned between 2002 and 2008. Although the 2008 data collection has not been completed we have found a consistent, startling trend of a dramatic increase in negative media. Between 2005 – two years after the opening of MySpace and after it had begun its dramatic rise in membership – and 2008, the number of unique newspaper articles or news stories on Internet “problems” increased 1600% and stories on MySpace problems increased 1100%! The graph below shows some of these results from newspaper articles.

The complete report should be available soon.







3. The area of cyberbullying is complex since no clear definition is applied to all research studies. However, according to the report, “online harassment or cyberbullying happens to a significant minority of youth, is sometimes distressing, and is frequently correlated with other risky behaviors and disconcerting psychosocial problems.” The report also goes on to admit that “this risk is the most common risk that minors face online.”

4. A third issue, exposure to “problematic content” (read pornography) may be prevalent but one sample national study which found 42% of youth reported unwanted or wanted exposure. Two thirds of those exposed reported that they did not want to see the porn but only 9% were very or extremely upset.

5. The Technology Advisory Board reviewed 40 different submitted technologies to keep children safe online. The board concluded that no single technology could keep kids safe online and that “there is no substitute for a parent, caregiver, or other responsible adult actively guiding and supporting a child in safe Internet usage.”


Overall, I would like to commend the task force for being even handed in its balanced assessment of available technologies with research results. I also feel that, as I have said often and noted throughout my book, Me, MySpace, and I: Parenting the Net Generation, no technology should be used as a substitute for good parenting practices. Parents must be aware of what their children are doing online and discuss potential problems in advance whenever possible. When unanticipated problems do arise, parents should be ready to deal with those problems by establishing rules and consequences for any misbehavior online. Both proactive parenting (in advance of problems) and reactive parenting (after a problem occurs) should be dealt with using sound “Authoritative Parenting” techniques which include setting limits and consequences for behavior (or misbehavior) within a loving, caring context where children are allowed and encouraged to express their opinions about both the problems and their solutions. Authoritative Parenting has been shown to lead to positive outcomes in many areas including our latest studies of the relationship between Internet and MySpace behaviors and parenting style. Children of Authoritative Parents are more successful in school, psychologically healthier, and face fewer online behavioral problems.

MacArthur Study on Social Networking: Excellent Study but Where Should Parents Be Involved?

I read with interest the amazing three-year study funded by the MacArthur Foundation who interviewed more than 800 youth and young adults, and conducted more than 5,000 hours of online observations. The research team used a variety of techniques to collect these data including semi-structured interviews, diary studies, focus groups, informal interviews, observations of social network activities, and content examinations of thousands of social network profiles. The team most certainly did a thorough job of using qualitative methodology to solidify the notion that despite media reports to the contrary, social networking provides invaluable socialization and learning experiences that are critical for today’s youth. I congratulate the entire team for their tireless efforts.

It was gratifying to me to see that their conclusions about social networking validate the work of myself, and my colleagues over the past several years. In a recent article published in a special issue of the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology entitled “The Association of Parenting Style and Child Age with Parental Limit Setting and Adolescent MySpace Behavior” we presented the results of two studies of parent and pre-teen and teen MySpace user pairs. Using anonymous, online surveys, we collected data from 607 parent-teen pairs investigating a variety of issues including MySpace usage and experiences, parenting style, limit setting, MySpace problems (cyberbullying, sexual predators, exposure to pornography), and other psychological and attitudinal issues. The research produced a strong picture showing how much pre-teens, teens, and young adults were using social networks (as well as other media and technology) and how their parents were, in many cases, not aware of their usage, underestimated their children’s experiences, overestimated online dangers, and did not set limits and boundaries on their children’s online behavior. MOST IMPORTANTLY, our research demonstrated that online behaviors, attitudes and psychological outcomes were strongly related to parenting style. Parents who adopted an Authoritative Parenting Style (using Diana Baumrind’s classification system), where they placed specific limits on their children’s behavior but did so by (1) talking with their children, (2) discussing the issues, (3) listening to their children, and (4) then jointly setting limits, raised children with better, safer, healthier online social networking experiences. Sadly, only one in three parents in our studies – and in other similar studies – used an Authoritative Parenting Style. A link to the article can be found on my website at www.Me-MySpace-and-I.com.

I am also gratified that the MacArthur research validated everything that I said in my recent book, Me, MySpace, and I: Parenting the Net Generation (2008, Palgrave Macmillan). The main premise of my book is that this is a whole new generation of children, adolescents, and young adults who face an entirely different world than that of their older brothers and sisters and their parents. These Net Geners were immersed in technology from birth and it has completely shaped their lives across all domains. The book talks about how parents need to be aware of the major impact technology and media has had – and will continue to have – on the Net Generation and the upcoming iGeneration born in the new millennium. The MacArthur projects reinforces these changes and parenting challenges.

I was most interested in the section of their report titled “Implications for Educators, Parents, and Policymakers” which listed four areas for consideration: (1) social and recreational new media use as a site for learning, (2) recognizing important distinctions in youth culture and literacy, (3) capitalizing on peer-based learning, and (4) new role for education. I am currently working on a new book tentatively entitled Me, My eLife, and I: Teaching and Raising the Net Generation (2009, Palgrave Macmillan) in, which I explore these issues and make strong research and psychologically-theory-based assertions about how youth are only going to become more involved in social media and how current educational models are not going to work unless they take advantage of this new generation of multitasking, media savvy children and adolescents. The thrust of the book is that our educational system, using its current models, is not suited to teaching Net Gen and iGen students due to its reliance on uni-tasking teaching methods, and its reluctance to integrate social networking and electronic communication tools into a multitasking environment that will be more enticing and pedagogically more appropriate for education. I was happy to see that the four implications of the report are all issues that I will be delineating in my book.

I was a bit confused in reading this section of implications. Even though “parents” were explicitly mentioned in the title, there were no recommendations about how parents should be involved in their children’s online activities. As we know from our studies – and dozens of previous studies of parenting styles in other domains – Authoritative Parenting is the best possible approach to keep children safe in their social networking, media-rich worlds.

Again, I want to applaud the MacArthur foundation and its researchers on a comprehensive study of social networking. I hope that the media will be able to refocus their reporting from the evils and moral panic concerning social networking to a more balanced approach about its positive benefits. I also hope that the media will recognize that these positive benefits are strongly influenced by good parenting.

I look forward to your comments. As always, feel free to e-mail me at LROSEN@CSUDH.EDU and visit my website for updates on our newest research on the Net Generation and the new iGeneration.

THE IMPACT OF TEXTISMS ON ENGLISH LITERACY

A recent Associated Press article entitled "Not all :) as informal writing creeps into teen assignments" discussed another fascinating study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project that included the following findings:

• Nearly two thirds of teens 12- to 17-years-old admitted to using some informal writing styles ("textisms") in school writing assignments.
• Half of the teens said they sometimes use improper capitalization and punctuation in school assignments.
  
• More than one third use acronyms such as LOL in their school writing.
• 86% of teens believe that good writing is important to success in life.
  

My colleagues and I have been studying the impact of "textisms" on writing. In a study completed in late 2007, we asked a sample of 678 pre-teens, teens, and young adults to tell us how much they use certain textisms in their daily written “online communication” and then asked them to write a formal letter to a fictitious company complaining about a product and asking the company to take care of the problem. We then used a standard scoring rubric used to assess writing quality (and did not deduct points for using textisms in their letter unless it affected the rated quality) and found some staggering results:

• The use of “contextual textisms” such as smilies, using special characters to indicate feelings (e.g., *hugs*), or using all capital letters to suggest strong emotions WERE NOT RELATED TO THE QUALITY OF THEIR FORMAL LETTER.

• HOWEVER, the use of “language-based textisms” such as acronyms (LOL), shortened words (tht instead of that), and removing apostrophes (wont instead of won’t) WERE NEGATIVELY RELATED TO THE QUALITY OF THEIR WRITING. In particular, those who used more of those textisms produced worse writing samples than those who your fewer even after controlling for gender and age [removing any effects of age and gender]!

NOTE: A recent conference presentation PowerPoint slide show presenting these results can be found by clicking here.

Our results are particularly troubling given a recent study by the College Board which found that the SAT Writing Test to be the best predictor of freshman grades.

We had predicted that textism use was not going to be negatively related to writing ability based on data from England suggesting the opposite. We are now exploring these findings further with a larger sample of subjects and two writing samples – a formal one and an informal one – in the hopes of gaining more clarity on the impact of textisms in online communication on writing in the classroom.

I believe strongly that writing is an important activity, regardless of one's age. As a university professor I am finding that more of my students "produce" writing, whether it be the kind of writing that marks proper English; short communication bursts replete with LOLs, wonts, :-) and missing characters; web sites; MySpace pages; blogs; or commentary on what they read about other peoples' writings. I firmly believe that our job -- as parents, teachers, or bosses -- is to take advantage of the writing experiences of these Net Generation and Generation X pre-teens, adolescents, and young adults and weave them into daily life. For example, on the college level, there are numerous tools to allow students to produce online commentary on course material. I, myself, am finding more uses of my campuses online system called BlackBoard to provide writing experiences for my students. For example, I may pose a question online concerning a recent study or something that we have discussed in class, and have students post their own thoughts plus respond to the comments of other, fellow students. I insist that they simply write, in any way that makes them comfortable, which often includes a myriad of textisms. The result is that I get some fascinating discussions of the type I would never see in a large class or in a class with students who are not comfortable speaking in front of their fellow students. In fact, often the most prolific commentators are precisely those students who are shy in the real world. Our research bears that out.

Research shows that a vast majority of Net Geners and Gen Xers feel more comfortable sharing their feelings and opinions in their screen life rather than their real life. It becomes our challenge to figure out ways to take advantage of this sense of disinhibition that many of these younger generation members feel from their years of living anonymously "behind the screen." For example, rather than rave about the negative aspects of teen MySpace or Facebook pages, take advantage of the ease of creating these representations of the self and discussion groups and encourage -- no require -- students to move some of their classroom work to the virtual world. We should recognize that these tools are here to stay and that pre-teens, adolescents, and young adults have grown up sharing ore of their feelings and opinions in virtual worlds than in their real worlds. I expect the younger generation to be even more so with Club Penguin, WebKidz and literally dozens of other online social networks being populated by children as young as late elementary school. We can make this proliferation of technology and media use work toward helping students write and produce their thoughts in a way that is comfortable for them. Given this base, I believe that we can then use these tools to move their more formal, school based writing to a higher level while allowing them and encouraging them to use their online language as a way to this teaching experience.

Return to Dr. Rosen's website for more information on his research, books, and commentaries.

More on Campus Shootings and Communication

Last week I wrote about university campus shootings and how college campuses need to be aware that different people have different communication modality preferences. One point that I made was that younger students in the Net Generation have a preference for text messaging and that campuses are not taking that into consideration when they send out mass e-mailings to alert students about emergencies. An article from the Associated Press presents some interesting but troubling data concerning creating a campus-wide text messaging database. Omnilert, a company that provides an emergency alert system called e2Campus to more than 500 university campuses, reports that the average campus obtains only 39% enrollment. Another company reports even more dismal findings for its 300 campuses – 28%! One campus even offered a drawing for an iPod Nano to increase enrollment in the system and only got 15% of the students to sign up. Even Virginia Tech, the scene of the worst campus shooting, only got 60% of its students to sign on to the system. Interestingly, according to the article, some universities require their students to participate and others require students to either enroll or decline enrollment to make sure that each one is offered that emergency option.

This is clearly a new issue for many campuses and it is at least gratifying to see that progress is being made. I don’t think that the campus needs 100% participation because word-of-mouth should reach additional students. However, I fear that it is going to take several more incidents for colleges and students to realize that emergency communication is critical and the type of communication preference is also vital. As I said in my earlier comments, no single type of communication system will fit everyone so an effort must be made to try to use the tools that we have to reach the most people. It makes sense to me that campuses need to ask “In case of an emergency, how would you like to be contacted?” or “What is the best way to contact you in case of an emergency?” or perhaps, in the interest of the best overall coverage, ask the students to list any and all preferred communication modalities for alerts.

We are in a major transition period in communication where we are seeing more people choosing to communicate via newer technological devices, rather than “older” technology choices like the telephone which has traditionally been used as an emergency contact on campus application forms.

In a recent study, we asked more than 1,300 people from 11- to 60-years-old how they would prefer to communicate with a variety of people including their best friend, a good friend, an acquaintance, boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse, asking for school or work help, a teacher or boss, parents, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins, doctors, dentists, to make a date, to break a date, and to break up with someone. In every situation except one (relatives such as grandparents, aunts, or uncles) there were statistically significant age differences. The table below shows two examples of these patterns of communication. There is no doubt that preferences differ across the generations. If you combine texting, IMing and E-Mailing into one “electronic communication” category you can see an even clearer pattern. When communicating with a good friend, for example, 11- to 17-year olds (22%), 18- to 25-year olds (26%), and 26- to 39-year olds (22%) prefer more of these tools than those who are older than 39 (15%). These differences become magnified as you move from good friends to acquaintances: 11-17 (45%), 18-25 (60%), 26-39 (54%), and 40 and older (35%). One other interesting difference is preference for an electronic communication modality for breaking a date: 11-17 (25%), 18-25 (29%), 26-39 (15%), and 40 and older (7%).

	Face-to-face	Telephone	Text Message	IM	E-Mail	Postal Letter
COMMUNICATING WITH BEST FRIEND
11 – 17 year olds	71%	16%	8%	5%	1%	0%
18-25	66%	18%	11%	3%	1%	0%
26-39	57%	32%	6%	1%	4%	0%
40 or older	60%	35%	1%	1%	4%	0%
COMMUNICATING WITH A GOOD FRIEND
11 – 17 year olds	59%	20%	12%	8%	1%	0%
18-25	46%	28%	20%	4%	3%	0%
26-39	41%	37%	12%	1%	9%	0%
40 or older	42%	43%	2%	2%	11%	0%

Although we did not ask about communicating with the campus in an emergency (the study was done before the Virginia Tech shootings), I am sure that the pattern would be the same. It is clear from these data that communication modalities differ by age. We are currently looking further into this issue in an ongoing study. The implications are clear: in a campus emergency you need to provide a range of communication modalities to reach everyone. Just sending an e-mail is not sufficient.

Campus Shootings and Communication Across Generations

Last week my university had an incident where someone was seen carrying an assault rifle on campus. Police were called, sherrifs converged on the campus and people feared another Virginia Tech or Northern Illinois University. Luckily, it was a false alarm. A flurry of e-mails sent to the entire campus followed for the next few hours as the campus was locked down. Local news (and even some national news outlets) carried the story and reported that campus was closed. However, most students had no idea that anything was happening so they came to campus unprepared for the lockdown.

As someone who studies technology, media, and communication I have always maintained that since you are dealing with multiple generations who have different communication styles and choices, you need to communicate in a way that has the highest likelihood of getting through to all students. My university is the most multicultural university west of the Mississippi and has students ranging from 18 to 80 (I believe our average age is around 28). Given this diversity, a campus-wide email is a totally ineffective way of reaching younger students. Live television news is also worthless as these students view their news online (or get it from The Daily Show). You must match the communication modality of the student and that depends on their age and techno-savvy. Here are some of my suggestions. No one option will cover all students (or faculty and staff for that matter) but using all of them will provide the greatest communication coverage:

1. Have each student supply his/her cell phone and send a mass text message. This has been done at other universities where they ask students to voluntarily go to a website and input this information in case of emergency. In my most recent research, Net Geners prefer text messaging to any other communication modality.
2. Post information on the campus website
3. Post a notice on any MySpace groups that involve campus students since many students check their MySpace page often during the day.
4. Post a notice on any Facebook groups that are frequented by campus students for the same reason as #3.
5. Use the reverse 911 to supply a telephone alert.
6. Post information on BlackBoard -- a campus-wide system where each course has a separate page for information, grades, etc. -- where many students visit before classes for updated information.

The problem is that Baby Boomers, Generation X and the Net Generation all have different preferred communication modalities. Baby Boomers tend to prefer phone and email. Generation Xers tend to prefer email while Net Geners prefer text messaging and social networking communication. My 6 options would provide the greatest possibility of reaching the most students.

I did quite a few media interviews on this topic after both recent shootings and this is what I always tell the reporter. You have to communicate by matching modalities with each person. Everyone has a different preferred modality which they check often. My six suggestions should reach the maximal number of students (and faculty).