Mar
01

Millennial Mobile Mavens

teens and cell phones

Lets face it: Millennials LOVE their cell phones. In fact, they love them so much that it is commonplace for them to be on them constantly while hanging out together. Today I was out to lunch with my family at a local restaurant, and in walks a group of six high school boys, all of whom were on their cell phones. As they sat down, they all continued to use their phones for one reason or another, and were even on them as they ate! Now, I use my iPhone quite a lot, but I thought that was extreme.

However, I put myself in another age group’s shoes for a minute. I related the way I was viewing and judging these boys to how Boomers probably judge people like me, the Millennial demographic. Boomers don’t necessarily understand why we Millennials use our phones so much and rely on them 24/7, and I did not understand why these high school teens felt the need to use their phones while going out to eat together.

This example demonstrated to me the changing technological times. Kids are now starting to use technologies at younger and younger ages. I remember a woman speaking at a recent conference about her two year old child knowing what TiVo was for. Amazing, right? What will the next generation of teens be like a few years from now? Probably more adept at technology than a majority of us, as scary as that is to imagine.

CBS News reported, “The wireless trade association CTIA and Harris Interactive surveyed some 2,000 teens across the country and learned that teens feel that cell phones have become a vital part of their identities. They also believe that they can gauge a peer’s popularity or status by the phone he or she uses.” Of teens 13-18, 4 out of 5 of them own a cell phone! In addition, almost half of kids 8-12 now have cell phones. I have seen middle school students that I used to babysit using their cell phones, and was shocked at first, but not anymore after reading these statistics.

As you can imagine, SMS advertisements will probably prove to be highly effective, targeted and widely viewed in the upcoming years with the high increase in cell phone ownership in Millenial teens.

Feb
17

Millennials Need Instant Gratification

Why is it that Millennials demand instant gratification?? If you put yourself in our shoes, though, can you blame us? We grew up on technology. I used a computer for the first time in the fourth grade, primarily for computer games, and grew up as the Internet evolved. We are extremely technologically savvy and love exploring the web.

We desire instant gratification in other ways as well:

When we turned 16, we expected to get our license and a car.
When we hear a song we like, we want to download it instantly.
When we took a test or wrote a paper, we wanted results quickly.
When we send an e-mail, we expect a message immediately saying it was sent.
When we call someone, we expect them to pick up.

Now what is it about technology that everyone loves?

Instant access.
Confirmation that an action was received.
Quick responses.
The ability to compute things fast.

Since us Millennials grew up on computers and the Internet, and the above four components are major benefits of fast computers, that explains our need for a quick reward from every action. It is almost an innate instinct of ours to receive instant feedback from something we do, not because we are greedy, careless, or selfish, but because we great up that way. Many people criticize our age cohort because we are this way, but consider how you would respond to things if you grew up experiencing feedback or rewards after everything you did.

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