Bruno, a 19 year old student and a panellist at MediaTel's latest Youth, Media and Technology event, gives an open and honest account of his media habits - his likes and dislikes - and reveals what he really spends his money on...

TV

I tend to watch TV in my free time - not when it airs live. I mostly watch television an hour after dinner or when I have a break from uni work. Part of the reason for this is because I do not have a TV licence as I am currently living in halls at university and I do not think it is worth the cost.

When watching TV online, I don't mind watching adverts before and after the programme or film if it is free to watch, however I find adverts that disrupt programmes very annoying and because of this I am more likely to go onto BBC iPlayer rather than 4oD or ITV Player. I ignore ads mid-programme by either muting the audio or simply switching the browser to another page while the advert runs in the background.

Advertisement

I use my laptop to watch on-demand TV and if I want to lie on my bed I link it up by HDMI to the bigger screen TV I recently bought. The one exception to watching on-demand is sport. I hate to watch sport if it's recorded as to me it has lost all the emotion and thrill, even if I still don't know the final score. I go to the pub to watch most games on a big screen or my friends and I share one person's Sky Go account, which has Sky Sports, and watch it on someone's laptop or TV. If a game is not on Sky Sports or terrestrial television, it is never a problem as alternative (illegal) websites offer live streams of the matches. We do watch ads shown during the break, even if they are sometimes muted or drowned out by background chatter.

Mobile

I recently changed my phone and network provider as my old 24 month contract had run out. I swapped my old Nokia smartphone for a Blackberry as all my other friends owned one. Without a Blackberry I was being left out of some group chats within Blackberry Messenger, so this was a big factor in making me choose my next phone.

I decided on which phone I wanted by researching and reading online reviews and used a price comparison website to check for the cheapest company I could get it on. I felt no guilt in changing networks from Vodafone to O2 because I was able to save £5 a month. The extra add-ons I get from O2 priority moments are fine, but I could easily live without them. Data limits and the number of texts included in the contract were essential when I was looking for the best deal.

I tend to call people much less from my mobile and use Skype or WhatsApp for speaking to family both at home and abroad. My email is linked up to my phone so that I instantly receive them, however I never reply or email anyone back from my phone as I much prefer to do it on a computer. All in all I am reasonably happy with my current phone, however I would much prefer to have an Android because of the better apps. Unfortunately iPhones are way out of my budget.

Gaming

I used to play around two to three hours a day on PS3 (FIFA and Modern Warfare), especially online with friends. Now fewer of us have a console at university so my habits have changed to playing more offline with friends in the same room.

I find playing online games boring if I play on my own. I prefer to play long story based games such as Assassins Creed or Skyrim as you are able to engage with it more. Having said this, I tend not to buy these games as they quickly become obsolete once you have completed the game. I choose to rent these types of games from LoveFilm or borrow it from a friend once they have completed it.

Current in-game advertising and brand exposure is easily ignored. If brands were to disturb my gaming experience I would find this very annoying. I would also think that I was being ripped off if I was paying £45+ for a new game and then also having to sit through adverts. If games where cheaper and some form of related interactive advertising could be shown during loading screens or as a side to the main game, then this would not be a problem.

Music

I currently have £40 of iTunes vouches online linked to my account, which I have received over the past few years as gifts and birthday or Christmas presents - but the problem is I haven't bought a film or music since I was about 12. It is too easy to find what you want online for free with one simple search.

I use HypeMachine and mp3 file sharing sites to find and download new music, as well as music shared by my friends on Facebook or simply word of mouth. I have, however, been to many gigs and festivals spending anywhere from £10 to £120 as the live experience is something that I will remember forever.

I used to own an iPod that I got for my birthday but it broke and haven't bought another one as I don't think it's worth the money, particularly because I can use my phone for music. Although if I did have spare cash I would probably choose to buy another iPod.

Recently I have bought a very good set of Logitech speakers for £30 to enhance my music listening experience in my room. Once again I used a lot of online research and price comparison sites to find the cheapest retailer, which happened to be an independent eBay seller. One thing I can't stand is audio adverts while I am listening to music; this is the main reason why I stopped using Spotify and don't listen to the radio that much.

Social Media

I will always have Facebook 'on' in the background in one way or another, both on my  laptop and mobile. I feel an immediate urge to check to see if I have a notification. I check Twitter if I am bored - if I have a quick five minutes to kill waiting at the bus stop or while having breakfast. I have started to follow news companies and journalists so it has also become a way of getting my news.

I think that Facebook has started to become clunky, messy and intrusive. I don't particularly want to know what my friends are doing online in their free time, whether it is listening to music on Spotify, playing games or reading the news on The Guardian. I believe that this has come to be a way in which people judge others depending on what they choose to read and listen to. I also don't like the fact that my parents and family members get to see my personal life and that my friends get to see my family life.

On Facebook I follow festivals and my favourite TV shows to get the latest information. I don't feel that sports and clothes brands give me enough to be worth cluttering up my newsfeed.

Occasionally I will update my status with a video, or even a trailer or song, to let other people know about it and see their reaction. If I find something online that I want to share with a particular friend or group of friends then I will post the link on their Facebook wall. If there was a way to integrate a video, picture or website into a chat then I think this would be useful. I use Facebook mainly to organise my social life and to share pictures from nights out, not so much to chat with others.

What I do buy

Apart from food and the obvious, I like to save all my money for experiences -  nights out, holidays, festivals, sports matches but also clothes and electronics. I would like to think that these memories will last with me forever, while some products you buy will quickly be outdated.

I very rarely go to the cinema and if I do it will be with a big group of friends and only if it's a much-anticipated film. I'm also more tempted to go to the cinema if it is something that is worth seeing on a big screen, such as an action film. Films are quickly put online for the world to see.

I constantly receive emails for deals and offers but unless I need to buy something I ignore them. I wouldn't buy something just because of a good deal, but if I were looking to buy something I would search for the best deal.

Saritha is part of a growing number of people in the country who have nomophobia, an abbreviation of 'no mobile phone phobia', or an overwhelming fear of being out of cellphone contact. Nomophobia is characterized by physical symptoms like panic attacks, shortness of breath, dizziness and sweating.

A growing dependence on cellphones for all types of wireless communication has led to a spurt in the incidence of what many experts say is a pathological condition.

A study commissioned by SecurEnvoy in UK in February showed that two-thirds of the population in UK, especially youngsters, was terrified by the thought of their cellphones being taken away from them. Research is currently being done on nomophobia in India. Though conclusive numbers are yet to be released, psychiatrists say a large number of people in India report symptoms of the condition.

"There is an excessive dependence on mobile phones today," said Chennai-based psychiatrist Vijay Nagaswami. "This has affected relationships and even become a cause of marital discord."

According to R Thara, also a practising psychiatrist in the city, cellphone addiction as a complaint in at least 30% of all cases of marital discord. "Couples often get to spend only a few hours together at home, and partners complain that when they do, their spouses are with the phone most of the time," she said. "Work is just an excuse really. It is more of a pattern of behaviour."

Spending all their waking hours on the phone means there is little time for interaction in a relationship. "It is not uncommon today to see a couple dining in a restaurant with both husband and wife engrossed with their mobiles," said Dr Thara.

Youngsters between the ages of 13 and 35 appear to be worst affected by nomophobia, research shows. In a study conducted in 2009 among 200 students at a medical college in Indore, 73% of the students said they kept their mobile phones with them at all times - even when they went to sleep. About 56% of them kept their cellphones close to their body so they could constantly feel in touch with the phone.

A study conducted in 2004 by MACRO-India among teenagers in Mumbai reported that 58% of them had said they could not manage without their mobile phones for even a single day.

Magdalene Jeyarathnam, director of Centre for Counselling, said she often came across many instances of children in their teens who are addicted to cellphones. "From when they are around 13, many children spend all their waking hours on the phone," she said. "In many cases, they begin texting immediately after school. If the parents try to confiscate the instrument, the children try to blackmail them. In one instance, even as the parents were scolding the child, he was texting away right under their noses."

inShare19

Kodak Could Have Been in the Mobile Business By Now

 

This week was a tale of two brands.

On the one hand, Kodak. Kodak could have been the Apple of photography but last week, the iconic American brand filed for bankruptcy protection. On the other, Apple’s latest earnings figures surpassed analyst expectations. The difference? Not “design thinking” or great products, but contrasting attitudes towards the youth market and how those attitudes sowed the seeds of both failure and success in their organizations.

Kodak could have been, in so many ways. Kodak could have been in the phone business by now. It could be Instagram. It could have its own iPod but instead it had print and film.

In this article, I want to find out why. Why did Kodak fail? Why is Apple a sustainable success? What role did youth and the youth vision play in these organizations?

Students are a key Beachhead for Apple
(c) Flickr Jon Ingay

Apple’s Story: 20 Years of Youth Focus

Apple caught everyone by surprise. Jobs had gone and flagship products iPad and the iPhone were now into successive generations. Despite the weight of the analyst community pointing to an unsustainable run of profits, Apple delivered – record profits of $13bn for Q4 2011 making it, once again, the most valuable company in the world by market cap.

It wasn’t all iPad and iPhone 4S; Mac sales were up 26% too. Beneath the iPad headlines lay a story of customers migrating between Apple products, from iPod to iPhone, from iPhone to Mac and Mac to iPad. It’s this story that underpins Cupertino’s wider fundamental success and perhaps explains why products like the iPad3 will merely be icing on the cake.

Back in the mid 90s, when the world was buying its first desktop PC with Windows 95 installed, Apple published this remarkable video clearly demonstrating a long-term vision to capture the youth segment. Apple wasn’t selling concept technology but an idea of how the company could make the education and learning experience for young people better. It’s a vision that persists until today; Apple recently announced a suite of products aimed at helping young learners from a revamped iTunesU (University) to its new iBooks app for the iPad.

When I went to University, everyone used PC. To use a Mac you must have been left handed/an artist/socially dysfunctional or all of the above. Now, every almost every student owns a Mac – and most of them MacBook Pros. Apple’s clear focus on youth and education has yielded significant dividends over the last decade. Policies focused on educating teens and teachers through its K-12 education strategy, Apple Camp and discounts offered to students have slowly but surely won over a market that would mature in the current decade and turn customers into fans.

Kodak and Apple share many virtues. They were both pioneers in their respective fields: Apple the first to launch the home PC, Kodak the first to give the world a cheap, portable camera. But, Kodak is nearly a century older than Apple and its legacy perhaps was also its own downfall.

Kodak’s Story: Focusing on Great Products

When Kodak should have been focusing on the next generation of young customers in 2000, it found itself spouting enthusiastically about becoming a “world leader in digital cameras.” Unfortunately for Kodak, it was the very customers they had ignored that also helped make it irrelevant. 27% of all photos taken now are on phones and the most popular “camera” by volume of submissions reported on Flickr, isn’t Kodak or Canon, but the iPhone 3G.

When you look at Kodak you see a warning sign for the mobile industry; failure is hidden in the blueprint of the company culture. CEO Perez complained that Kodak was so hierarchical that he couldn’t get anyone to disagree with him. It’s a culture that isolated decision makers from the reality of the street by using focus groups (what would now be called “market research communities“) rather than immersion or ethnography and by employing creative agencies to override the company’s own instinct. The more the company speaks to itself, the less it becomes relevant, existing in a world of denial.

“FYI Kodak’s not dead yet, guys. You can still buy their amazing film. #believeinfilm @kodakCB”

CEO Perez identified the problem back in 2003 in a Business Week article where he lamented, “If I said it was raining outside my board would agree with me.” And, it’s here in this culture of top-down innovation that Kodak’s blueprint for failure is found.

The Apple-Youth Relationship

A decade of working closely with students meant Apple was sensitive to their needs. It was no coincidence that the first non-PC product they launched in the Jobs era was a small music player aimed at a market that had fallen out of love with the music industry. From iPod they made the iPhone and the rest is history. Without this close association with youth and without the frontline feedback garnered from their in-store Genius crew, Apple would – like Kodak and many IT players now – be at the mercy of the “Big Ideas” of their design or creative agency.

Kodak: The Perils of Design Thinking

Rather than develop solutions for a generation that wanted to share “memories” digitally, Kodak turned to film and printers. Who in their right mind would invest in a mass market photo printer these days? Kodak did. Stuck in their culture of denial, compounded by steep authority gradients that protected the company from the reality of what the next generation wanted, Kodak continued to toot their PR trumpet even while the ship was sinking.

“Kodak Hero Inkjet printers getting attention at CES – so many ways to print! – Google Cloud, smart phones!” tweeted their Chief Blogger on twitter, just days before the Chapter 11 filings. The same week, photo sharing website Instagram announced they were receiving 26 new photos and signing up 1 new user every second.

If Kodak had engaged youth back in the 90s, Kodak would have dumped print and film and be working on exciting products that would break new grounds. They would have given us a device for photos the equivalent of what the iPod was for music. Kodak could have created Instagram or The Flip but they didn’t. Like many tech brands today they were intent on becoming a global leader in selling their device.

Herein lies many of the challenges facing the mobile industry today – Design Thinking. Design Thinking prioritizes design and the product rather than the needs of the customer. While we all wax lyrical about Apple design, the interface etc, we forget that the reason Apple products are where they are today isn’t design but a solid understanding of customer need.

I’m often challenged in presentations because a lot of what I share is a message of change. “But…” IT managers will say, “we need results now, we can’t wait 20 years like Apple.”

Well, that’s where the culture of the organization contains the blueprint for failure. $13bn in profits didn’t happen in a vision from last quarter – that vision happened back in the 90s when Apple made a conscious decision to improve the lives and education of the next generation of customers.

There is an old Chinese proverb that reads:
“The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today.”

Free Download: 100 Key Trends in Youth Mobile Culture

Sign up to the mobileYouth newsletter and you will also get the 4 Part PDF Free (Note: each section is full-color, high resolution, 9MB in size). Our trends newsletter delivers the latest insights straight to your email box. Written every week by our resident best-selling mobileYouth authors. Never miss a trend in youth mobile culture again. Unsubscribe any time.