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Tenth Grade Tech Trends

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Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#101

Post by blantonl »

biturd wrote: post #30

I think he missed the point about FaceTime. Not /that/ many 10th graders have iPhones. 110.00 a month is too much, so the push the limits of their iPods. We don't need a new app so kids can do video chat, there's Skype and others for that. They like the ease if use. The problem is to tack in another data plan restriction removal to open FaceTime with AT&T and possibly others is the barrier. I have a 4gs and can't use…

You don't need an iPhone to use Facetime.

I have a 6 and 8 yr old and both received iPad minis for Christmas and they have already FaceTimed with their friends and cousins via their new devices.

And we are now spending a lot of time educating our children how to properly utilize technology to communicate with their friends. That includes a number of very firm rules and regulations.

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#102

Post by ruswick »

justhw wrote: post #12

Tenth graders are customers without credit cards. How are snapchat and all the free apps generating revenue? ads?

Granted, I'm in 11th grade, but I and most others I know have a non-trivial amount of cash. (Though, since I have no income for 75% of the year, I try not to spend anything.)

Most people in my cohort aren't exactly destitute. Certainly, a business could make money selling to teenagers. They just couldn't achieve the volume that something like Facebook has.

Generally, people like free things and have a disregard for their privacy, (myself included) which is why ads are far more lucrative.

HOWEVER: This observation is not necessarily reflective of the generation at large, so I would take this with a grain of salt.

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#103

Post by snogglethorpe »

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]…

Based on my observations (qualifications: I go to a fair number of busy cafes a lot :): Around here (Tokyo area, mostly western Tokyo [Shibuya, Shinjuku, etc]) there was a big jump in coffee-shop tablet usage a year or two back. They largely seemed to displace laptop users.

Subsequently, however, tablets seem to have almost completely disappeared from cafe/coffee-shops; usage on trains is also down. Maybe people still use them at home or something I dunno, but at least in public usage they showed every sign of a classic fad...

Interestingly, laptop usage doesn't seem to have recovered... most people either chat to real friends, use their smartphone (often together with their friends), ... or read (yes, real book usage seems to be up quite a bit)...

I wager it's just too annoying to carry around a tablet, and smartphones are now good enough that they've largely displaced them in public "on the go" usage, where portability is a key factor.

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#104

Post by ruswick »

biturd wrote: post #30

I think he missed the point about FaceTime. Not /that/ many 10th graders have iPhones. 110.00 a month is too much, so the push the limits of their iPods. We don't need a new app so kids can do video chat, there's Skype and others for that. They like the ease if use. The problem is to tack in another data plan restriction removal to open FaceTime with AT&T and possibly others is the barrier. I have a 4gs and can't use…

In some places- for instance, my school- iOS penetration is probably above 60%. Mind you, this is a school district populated by quite a few low-income families. In more affluent areas, it's north of 90%.

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#105

Post by jff »

corporalagumbo wrote: post #84
jff wrote: post #82

I wouldn't be too much bothered by what tenth grade kids like, because they don't have any damn money.

Wow. You must be lost - Hackernews is, as far as I am aware, a site for intelligent, open-minded people who recognise that valuable information may be found in many inconspicuous, non-intuitive locations. People intelligent enough to realise that kids are historically early-adopters and re-shapers of technology, pioneering uses and social integrations which, while dismissed as trivial by ignorant, hidebound adults, o…

The article describes how these kids are all using free services, and that they won't use the ones that costs money. So I'd say that if you have any business model besides "Ads, ads, glorious ads on our user-generated content!", I think teenagers are probably going to pass by your service, however good it may be.

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#107

Post by dpe82 »

TillE wrote: post #70
veridies wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This is still something Facebook should solve. Facebook, despite its public groups and pages, still fosters incredibly insular communities, and those can get tedious very quickly. The reason Tumblr and Twitter have any popularity is that they encou…

> The reason Tumblr and Twitter have any popularity is that they encourage finding and following new, interesting people. Yes yes yes. There's a huge unsolved problem in the social networking space: meeting new people near you (for purposes other than dating or sex, but that too) That'll be the next truly big thing, I think. It might focus on places or events, like connecting people who are going to a concert or a ba…

Facebook used to solve this (at least for college students) with class listings. That was a really killer feature for a large part of their user base that got axed when they launched the app platform and expected an app to take its place. Problem is, of course, 50 apps took its place and none of them won.

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#108

Post by Shank »

corporalagumbo wrote: post #87
Shank wrote: post #41

I'm in 11th and I read Hacker News on a daily basis, so I'm a bit outside the general population when it comes to issues like this. With that said, her thoughts on Facebook are echoed by everyone who I've talked to. Many are sick of it, and fewer each day check it regularly. If I need to contact someone, even someone with Facebook on their smartphone, it takes hours to get a reply. If I use SMS I'm acknowledged near…

I feel like Facebook has become the boring Uncle of our digital lives. Nobody really likes it, except for those blissfully ignorant people who haven't realised how dumb they look posting all the time, but we can't get rid of it. I agree that texting is usually faster than Facebook messaging (though because I use WP7 the line is pretty well blurred between the two for me) but you tend to be Facebook friends with more…

I use Facebook as the "universal directory" if I don't have contact details for someone, which is the infuriating part. If I need to contact someone I don't have a phone number or some IM contact for, I go to Facebook and look there.

A great analogy would be phone books. I've not found a person who actually likes getting or using them, but they were the best place to find someone's phone number if all you had was a name and a bit of an address.

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#109

Post by theatrus2 »

DanBC wrote: post #79
ams6110 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Debit cards in theory do not allow any debt, thus there's not so much of a problem allowing under 18s to have them. See this UK account for 11 to 18 year olds which allows a debit card. ( http://www.rbs.co.uk/personal/current-accounts/g1/young/revo... ) HSBC give you a savings account when you're seven, and add a current account when you're 11, with a VISA debit card. ( https://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/current-accounts/und…

A lot of US banks still want 18-year olds or a parental guarantee.

US banks love overage fees (making credit card interest rates an amazing bargain). Plus there is the liability of checks/ACH which can cause overdrafts.

Re: Tenth Grade Tech Trends

#110

Post by dpe82 »

ruswick wrote: post #100
corporalagumbo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

First of all, it can if it leads you to further investigation.

Second, perhaps instead of only offering unhelpful criticism why don't you share what you see so we may all gain from a larger sample size?

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