13 Things to Know About Teens and Technology

This report from the 29th Annual ACT Enrollment Planners Conference from July 23, 2014, has up-to-date information regarding teens and technology.  Lee Rainie "highlight[s] some critical ways digital tools are changing not only how teens communicate, but also how they gather information about the world and present themselves to others."  

Most teens have immediate access to technology and the internet through smart phones, computers and tablets.  Teens are in constant contact with friends and the world through social media. Information is immediate.  



By "PictureYouth" (Flickr: Young girl with smart phone) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons


While they have great access for researching, teachers report students also expect immediate research findings, which leads to frustration at times.  Also due to today's technology, teachers report students have shorter attention spans.  Teens are led to an array of resources when researching on the internet, but this is also limiting the types of resources they are using which leads to issues in supporting an argument using multiple resources. Data also shows teens are having problems judging online material for quality, accuracy and bias.  I think these issues will all improve as teachers become increasingly aware on specifics that need to be taught according to challenges today and what we see in the future as things continue to change.  

The report goes on to report on how the "hyperconnected Millenials" will live.  Will the teens of 2020 be positively or negatively impacted by today's technology?  I can see both sides to the argument, but I lean more to the positive outcomes in the visual below.



























Finally, the report discusses the 6 media zones- stacks, signals, snacks, streams, socials and synthesized spaces- how they work and what that means for the message makers now and in the future.  


74/150 pages

13 Things to Know About Teens and Technology. (n.d.). Pew Research Centers Internet American Life Project RSS. Retrieved July 29, 2014, from http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/07/23/13-things-to-know-about-teens-and-technology/