Sachin=GOD Posted September 16, 2012 Posted September 16, 2012 Say mom, did you have electricity when you were growing up?" Twelve-year-old Aditya throws a casual query at his 38-year-old mother during a power cut. Even before the bemused mother can revert, the backup inverter springs into action and her son is once again immersed in his online game, competing against friends in multiple locations, most of whom perhaps have no idea how growing up in the 1900s a different century for them was like. These kids a generation born in 2000 would, by next year, be the millennium's first teens. Their arrival in the world roughly coincided with the dawn of the information age the internet implosion, google search, mobile phones, glitzy malls stuff that was not available even to their immediate predecessors growing up barely a decade before in the late 1990s. It's a generation, then, that has seen a completely different picture of the world which has accordingly shaped its world view. That it's a smarter generation is largely due to its fascination some would even say obsession with technology. Arsh Srivastava, a 12-year-old student of Class VII at Chandigarh's St John's High School, says he was fascinated by mobile phones ever since he was a baby. He now uses a Samsung Galaxy S smartphone and aspires for a S3. Not surprising then, that social scientists term it a generation of 'digital natives' , who take to technology like fish to water. "You can't blame them," says Shiv Visvanathan, professor at the Jindal School of Government & Public Policy. "This is a generation that has trained in a new kind of literacy, which involves technology extensively. For them, information and technology are commodities. They'd die of boredom if deprived of either commodity." The solution to boredom, in the tween manual, is the golden 'F' word. Facebook is the alternate world which every kid below 13 aspires to reach. What makes it cooler is that it's officially off-limits to them. But it's a restriction that's easily bypassed. Anmol, a 11-year-old from Kolkata, says most of his friends are there. Those who are not, are told off: 'Go gal'. That's 'Go, get a life dude' in tweenspeak. Once inside the inner circle, there is a sense of achievement, but only till the next new technological marvel catches their attention. This extreme restlessness is the hallmark of a generation that has to keep pace with fast-changing technology which, many say, is leaving them with seriously low attention-spans a problem that their teachers often have to contend with. "For teachers, the challenge is engaging them through lessons and activities that develop reflection, patience and sensitivity which can balance their moods and behaviour," says Ameeta Mulla Wattal, principal of Springdale's School at Pusa Road in Delhi. In terms of awareness, though, again facilitated by technology, this is a generation that is aggressively aware. Sexologist Prakash Kothari says that the internet which most kids start using by the time they are 6 or 7 has ensured that they are sexually knowledgeable much earlier. "I have had instances of parents bringing boys as young as 8 or 9, who have started masturbating after they learnt about it from the net," he says. Because it's a generation that's maverick in its choices, and often damning in its quick judgments on brands, marketers catering to this segment can't take them for granted. Smita Jatia of Mc Donald's , a brand that many tweens have grown up on, says it's important to keep their behaviour and dynamic wants and desires in mind. "We have to constantly innovate and elevate their 'I'm lovin it' experience through menu options which can keep them happy." Impatient and restless may be the words that older generations may use to describe the millennium's first teens, but there's no denying that they symbolize the way society, and indeed, life has changed around the world. "We live in accelerated times," says Nishant Shah of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet & Society. "The breathlessness of our times is evident in everything from the kind of movies we make to the ways in which our news and information travel. At the end of the day, our younger generations are also products of our times." This is also a bunch born and growing up in more comfort. Brand consultant Harish Bijoor calls some of them part of the "commode generation." "The teenager of the 2000 series of years is essentially a very different animal," he says. "Many of these kids have never used an Indian style toilet." This may be a broad generalization. But the moot point, says Bijoor, is that the feeling that life is tough, is not ingrained as much into them as it was even a few years back among those their age. "These kids are born in an era of relative plenty," he says. "They have not seen strife or heard war sirens that made many children scurry into dug-outs in their schools in 1971. Nor is it a generation that has faced sugar or rice shortage . The consumer of this generation is therefore oriented to a greater degree of easy life, wants comforts, seeks out shortcuts and believes in intelligent work rather than hard-work ." As these tweens emerge as millennium teens, the future would in all likelihood remember them as products of a generation that drastically altered the way in which information is not just consumed , but also produced. One only hopes, though, that they concede this point to those of us from an earlier, slower generation that however unbelievable it may sound, the rest of us are not from the dark ages and that we indeed did have electricity while growing up. ToI
Sachin=GOD Posted September 16, 2012 Author Posted September 16, 2012 Idolizing mom, worshipping web A six-city survey conducted by market research agency Ipsos exclusively for Sunday Times provides an insightful peep into the mind of the 'millennial' teen. The survey covered almost 500 respondents in the age group of 8-13 years across Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai and Kochi, probing them on issues ranging from their role models, career choices, the influence of internet and mobile phones in their lives to the kind of games they play, clothes they wear and how they see their relationship with their parents. The results paint the picture of a generation that knows its mind, considers technology as its birthright and is relaxed in its relationship with its parents as well as friends. Parents, in fact, are role models for majority of kids. Mothers have an edge over fathers, with 37% preferring them over dads, who are the inspiration for 32%. In career choices, though, most of those polled preferred conventional options like medicine (27%) and engineering (23%) although other careers like singer, actor, model and designer also get a thumbs up, especially in cities like Kolkata where 5% want to be the next singing sensation, and Bangalore where 6% would want to take up a sporting career. For a generation that's literally grown along with the internet, the world wide web, not surprisingly, wields a big influence . Almost 50% of the kids claimed they became aware of the net when they were 4-7 years old. In Delhi, a whopping 76% were net-savvy at this age while in Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley, the number was 58%. Interestingly, girls (57%) of this age group took more to the web than boys (44%). Most kids polled said they were on the net for 1-3 hours daily, primarily for playing games (60%), watching videos (52%), searching for information for school work (42%) and checking Facebook (34%). Even though Facebook is out of bounds for below-13 s, 71% of kids in Delhi and 68% in Mumbai admitted they had faked their age to open an account on the site. For most kids, surfing the net topped the list of activities they do in their free time. In Delhi where 100% of the kids polled said they were using the internet 86% are on the web when they are free while 14% like to watch TV. Only 12% said they preferred reading in their spare time. A big eye-opener is the age at which kids became aware of the mobile. 65% of the kids said they were conversant with the mobile when they were 4-7 years old. In Delhi, the awareness was 100% at this age while in Kochi, majority said they came to know about cellphones when they were 8-11 years old. Delhi again leads the pack of kids who got their own cell when they were 12-13 years old (93%) while Bangalore follows with 40%. Sending SMSes to friends is the coolest thing tweens find about mobiles. 83% of those polled said texting was their favourite activity with more girls (94%) than boys (64%) preferring it. Interestingly, 28% of the kids thought that their parents' generation connected with each other through postcards and telegrams. Just 16% were aware about the concept of trunk calls while pagers were a virtually unknown entity for most of them. Spending patterns emerge as another intriguing area. Most of the kids polled said that they usually spend their pocket money on buying chocolates (74%) and food and drinks (55%). A substantial 56% of the tweens said they were trying to save their pocket money, which ranged from Rs 100 to Rs 200 per week in most of the cities, and 46% were buying new clothes usually branded from malls every month. A city-wise segregation shows that kids in each city visit malls for different reasons. Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Kochi children like to shop there; in Chennai, the motivating factor is watching a movie while Delhi tweens go there for eating options. Not surprisingly, awareness about exotic cuisines is highest in Delhi. All the respondents in the capital said they were aware of cuisines like Tex-mex while 86% had tried out Japanese food. Watching TV a bone of contention for most parents is nevertheless, a preferred activity for tweens. A whopping 70% said that they spend 1-3 hours daily watching their favourite shows across genres like songs, movies and cartoons. Meanwhile, 78% voted for gaming as another fun activity which took up 1-3 hours of their time every day. In contrast, only 38% said they play a sport every day with Kolkata being the most sporty city (59%). Cricket emerges as the favourite sport across cities although majority of the respondents (55%) said they don't want to take it up as a career. In terms of relationships, this is a generation that likes to spend time with friends. 52% of the respondents said they spend upto 3 hrs daily with their chums, excluding the time spent at school. The catch, though, is that most of this time is spent in interactions with them on Facebook , mobile and chatting. However, when it comes to solving a problem or discussing an issue, 62% say they would rather go to their parents, who are seen by a large majority as a friend (42%) rather than someone elder to them (34%). ToI
Crookbond Posted September 16, 2012 Posted September 16, 2012 Beetle, Check out what kids are capable of at 8-9 years. Do you still think 14 is too early for sex education?
Sachin=GOD Posted September 16, 2012 Author Posted September 16, 2012 TOI ....:headshake: do you disagree with the findings of the survey?
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