Tenth Grade Tech Trends • Hacker News Board

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#91

Post by corporalagumbo » Sun, Dec 30, 2012, 2:41 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #69

FTA: For me, Twitter is predominantly a link discovery service — admittedly, that is a simplified view, but it’s helpful for these purposes — so I followed-up on her Twitter comments by asking where she discovers links. “What do you mean?” She couldn’t even understand what I was asking. I rephrased the question: “What links do you read? What sites do they come from? What blogs?” "I don’t read links. I don’t read blog…

My impression is the exact opposite: I see people reading and debating more than ever thanks to the internet. I think thanks to the internet we are in a golden era of literacy, but we just don't notice it because we're too busy complaining with other highly-literate people on highly debate-focussed websites such at this one about the more obvious non-literary manifestations of popular culture.

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#92

Post by corporalagumbo » Sun, Dec 30, 2012, 2:46 AM UTC

r0s wrote: post #25

Interesting to me are the generational service abandonment patterns. The author mentions abandoning MySpace moving into highschool like the subject graduates past Tumblr. It's symbolic of the maturing nature of the individual. In the future perhaps social networks will find a way to iterate their brand with each generation to prevent losing users to another new service.

My gut reaction is "not going to happen." Because I think people are drawn to companies with honest, relaxed attitudes - not companies carefully calculating their identity to win a new market share and desperately attempting to avoid obsolescence. And I think this consumer preference is becoming even more influential as the main arena of corporate competition becomes increasingly digital and social. Look at how successful Microsoft has been so far at proving that it's still cool.

But then, maybe you're right - maybe we should look forward to some incredibly sophisticated, calculating companies in the future.

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#93

Post by notJim » Sun, Dec 30, 2012, 2:48 AM UTC

unimpressive wrote: post #47

I'm going to break the "Don't mention my age." rule to write this post. Only because here it's relevant. What you use and how you use it has a lot of factors besides age. It has to do with your friends, their friends, where you live, what school you go to or what job you have, etc etc. I'd like to share an anecdote about umwelt. A few days ago, I walked into a coffee shop. I sat in that coffee shop for two hours.[0]…

You actually didn't mention your age. I gather from the rest of your comment, you're in high school?

You have a lot of good thoughts about the mobile/tablet stuff and I think you're right. Just to add some quantitative info to it, I work for an e-commerce site and a quarter of our traffic is mobile, and that's not including people using our native mobile apps, which means that our real mobile traffic is more than 25%. I don't believe that includes tablets, but I'm not sure (there isn't a tablet-specific site, although we do have native tablet apps.)

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#94

Post by corporalagumbo » Sun, Dec 30, 2012, 2:49 AM UTC

Uhhrrr wrote: post #59

I think it makes total sense that no one she knows reads blogs. Most kids don't read the paper, or read books for fun. This is not so much devolution of reading habits as democratization of computer usage.

Yeah. Computing has trickled down from the intellectual elite to the masses. I suspect more curious, analytical and information-seeking attitudes will trickle down in time too.

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#95

Post by notJim » Sun, Dec 30, 2012, 2:51 AM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #78

timthorn wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't they have debit cards in their own name?

Pretty hard to do if you're under 18, banks want a legally responsible person to own the account.

I think debit cards are easy. I had one around 15 and my sister even younger. It was my account, but it was linked to my mom's so she should could transfer money into it.

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#96

Post by zdrtx » Sun, Dec 30, 2012, 2:54 AM UTC

corporalagumbo wrote: post #88

k-mcgrady wrote: post #20

I don't think the Facebook issue has anything to do with their brand. I think the attitude that Facebook is addicting actually has more to do with people becoming bored with the service and noticing how much time they actually spend on it. Edit: >> "... my friends and I used Myspace in middle school, and we too abandoned it (for Facebook) once we reached high school" The conclusion drawn here might be incorrect. I'm…

I think he's right to question the viability of the brand. Facebook has accumulated a pretty incredible amount of unflattering connotations over time, and is now probably one of the least cool tech companies around, at least in the eyes of normal people. Personally I find it telling that the people I respect the most are those that publicly post on Facebook the least (naturally I use it post publicly never :) ) The d…

Do you personally know Mark Zuckerberg? Maybe you meant that the popular image of him in the media is uncool.

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#97

Post by zdrtx » Sun, Dec 30, 2012, 2:58 AM UTC

exodust wrote: post #49

15 year olds definitely want to have "compatibility with different systems" including the source of their pay packets, allowance, and access to resources - ie old people and their old email. But it turns out email, even if used infrequently, is still important. It's easy to have multiple accounts sit there indefinitely. Not controlled by one fatcat pulling privacy strings and strategizing your online activity. Meanwh…

To be clear, Facebook doesn't tell any advertisers any information about any users. Advertisers tell Facebook what kinds of people they want to see their advertisement, and Facebook shows the advertisement to those kinds of people.

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#98

Post by corporalagumbo » Sun, Dec 30, 2012, 3:00 AM UTC

zdrtx wrote: post #96

corporalagumbo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's right to question the viability of the brand. Facebook has accumulated a pretty incredible amount of unflattering connotations over time, and is now probably one of the least cool tech companies around, at least in the eyes of normal people. Personally I find it telling that the people I respect the most are those that publicly post on Facebook the least (naturally I use it post publicly never :) ) The d…

Do you personally know Mark Zuckerberg? Maybe you meant that the popular image of him in the media is uncool.

No. Based on everything I have seen or heard of him in the media, including videos of him in speaking or interacing in social situations. He seems extremely awkward and completely bereft of charisma. The polar opposite of Jobs.

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#99

Post by hosh » Sun, Dec 30, 2012, 3:22 AM UTC

ruswick wrote: post #39

hosh wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value of the article is not in its statistical likelihood, but rather, in recognizing how his assumptions blinded him. And actually listening to people.

How is he to know if he was "blind?" The fact that one girl exhibited preferences counter to his assumptions does not mean that those assumption are incorrect.

"The fact that one girl exhibited preferences counter to his assumptions does not mean that those assumption are incorrect." <-- is exactly how you do not do customer development. You have stopped listening to the user.

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#100

Post by ruswick » Sun, Dec 30, 2012, 3:56 AM UTC

corporalagumbo wrote: post #86

ruswick wrote: post #2

Interesting commentary. However, a sample size on one doesn't yield a substantive-enough dataset to draw conclusions. As a high schooler, I can tell you that service use varies wildly based on location and demographic. Moreover, Josh's sister didn't really differentiate between her preferences and the preferences of her cohort in general. She may have very idiosyncratic social media use-cases. I know the way in which…

Just like I get an intuitive sense that this article is on-the-money, I get an intuitive sense that your comment is wrong. Intelligent, investigatory conversations with individual subjects can be extremely insightful, and speak to much larger trends. Plus, I think you're discounting the power and spread of trends in youth culture. School is the pre-eminent breeding ground for fads.

I can assure you, these trends are not reflected at my school.

Why is her assertion of trends more valuable than mine or anyone else's? Why does her school better exemplify our cohort than mine or anyone else's?

One conversation does not constitute a definitive explanation for the social media use of a generation. Use changes based on location, income, race and gender balance, ect. in schools.

This is a complex topic. One anecdote can't offer any real insight.