Study finds youth Net use will spark wide change
by Nancy Weil
From...
(IDG) -- Some people likely will find no comfort in new study results from Forrester Research indicating that when it comes to the Internet, in North America at least, people aged 16 to 22 are the role models, and their attitudes will alter the electronic economy profoundly.
It's worth noting for those readers who greet this finding with dismay that older generations had the same effect when it came to past innovations like automobiles and television, "internalizing" those technologies and integrating them into their lives. Younger online users are doing that now with the Internet, unconsciously integrating cyberspace into their daily lives, Forrester found.
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"This is a watershed for the Internet -- when a generation of consumers internalizes a technology, its dissemination becomes self-sustaining and pervasive," according to a quote attributed to James McQuivey, a senior Forrester researcher, in a written statement. "Just as previous generations internalized the automobile and television, integrating it into every aspect of their adult lives, today's 16- to 22-year-olds will become the first Net-powered generation."
While that's not perhaps an entirely new conclusion -- analysts and industry observers have been saying roughly the same thing for some time now -- there's something about seeing it quantified in black-and-white. The report, titled "The Net-Powered Generation," is based on a survey of almost 8,500 16- to 22-year-olds in North America. To verify how representative the sample was, the responses were compared to two adult surveys and to data on the young adult population from both U.S. and Canadian sources.
After internalizing the Internet, its use among the age range surveyed will become instinctive and will affect "all of their other behaviors," the Forrester statement said. When that happens, this new Internet generation will then adopt a set of beliefs and expectations about the power wielded by average consumers. Presumably, that's when things get really interesting.
Forrester devised five "Net rules" that will govern this emerging set of beliefs and expectations.
First, young Internet movers and shakers will insist that "deep and accurate information" be available all of the time, wherever they are.
Second, they will insist that personal information has value and this will shape how marketing campaigns appeal to their behavior and attitudes.
They will live by the credo that "choice is a human right" and demand a range of options from suppliers.
They will insist on free stuff, in a rule Forrester labeled "there is such a thing as a free lunch." No-strings giveaways will be a mainstay of marketers trying to grab the attention of Internet consumers.
Lastly, the attitudes of young people will alter how building trust in relationships is viewed. The use of e-mail and instant messages will foster the belief that building trust does not require knowing others in a face-to-face way.
Over time, the set of rules outlined by Forrester will govern consumer behavior and companies that don't meet the new set of expectations will fail, the market researcher contends.
Forrester researchers might well have been able to knock off a goodly number of surveys on its own home turf -- its headquarters is in Cambridge, Mass., home of both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and replete with technologically savvy young people.
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