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Global Technology Office
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Youth & Technology ForumWe hosted a small forum on Aug 6, 2004 at Campus Crusade’s headquarters entitled "Youth & Technology". We brought in 1 middle school girl, 2 high school youth (one guy, one girl), and two college students (one guy, one girl). Representing Campus Crusade were staff members of our college ministry and our high school ministry (among others). It was an insightful time. Following are some notes… These students use yahoo groups for dorm communication, projects, etc to connect to each other. Most important use for technology is to communicate first, entertainment second. The way they communicate is through IM and cell phones first, email next, website or blog last. They prefer IM because it's the fastest way to talk to friends. Cell phones are great because they don't have to be in their room to receive the IM (none of our panel use IM or text on their cells because of cost). Email is used to communicate when they aren't online or to communicate a message to a group of people at once…like a photo, link, or message. They usually use email with family so they can check the message on their own time. They will read short emails, but if they are longer, they need to have bullet points, etc to catch attention. If they subscribed to receive the email, they'll read more, but still needs to be catchy. "I haven’t seen a personal email in months…my IM is on all day…one at work and one at home" – one high school student said. "IM is like a security blanket…on the phone you can’t do that" – middle school student. Away messages on IM are used as a modern answering machine…sometimes leaving a cell phone number if they really want to be reached. "It's harder to believe someone online than on the phone" – high school student referring to how you can’t always trust an IM message because you can’t hear their voice inflections. If a conversation was getting long, had more detail, or more personal, often they would rather talk on the phone or meet face-to-fact. However, many have had long IM sessions instead. They felt a voice conversation was held at a higher value. However, one middle school student said "it's easier to have a friendship online" because of the anonymity. She went on, "it's weird hearing voices come out of plastic things", but having a conversation through an IM window is normal. Some have gone to message boards and chat rooms, but the friendships they develop usually lead to an IM session. Concerning having their own website, one college student said, "Everyone would love to put something on the web, it's just not many know the technology". This is one reason they are attracted to the ease of something like Yahoo! Groups. When asked about their preference of having a printed Bible or one on their computer, one college student said, "You can’t multitask when you're reading the bible" so he'd rather have the book where he can get away…there are too many distractions on his computer being connected. He would, however like to have a bible on a computer as a research tool. A conclusion: these students long to be connected to others that they know. They would rather have a few close connections and be able to chat quickly with them at any given moment than to have many connections like in a discussion group or message board. |
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