E-mail
Print
As the Times/Bloomberg poll found, those recommendations (or pans) play a significant role in determining attendance. When asked how soon after seeing a movie they told their friends about it, 38% of teens and 40% of young adults said they told their friends the same day.
"Those text messages are a very powerful tool," said Jeff Blake, chairman of marketing and distribution for Sony Pictures Entertainment. "You certainly have the feeling that what they say in their text messages is just as important — if not more important — as the quote we put at the top of our ad. These kids listen to each other."
When it comes to the content of their entertainment, those surveyed tended to be quite tolerant of violence, gross-out humor and swearing in movies.
Yet a surprisingly high number of teenage boys (58%) and even more teenage girls (74%) said they were offended by material they felt disrespected women and girls. (How they reconcile that with their preference for the often-sexist aesthetic of rap music, the top music choice among respondents who specified a genre, is a topic for another poll.) Respondents who considered themselves religious were much more likely to be offended by gay and lesbian content. Young men 18 to 24 aren't offended by much; even material that disrespects women bothers only about 40% of this group.
Twelve-year-old Melina Erkan, a seventh-grader in Monroe, Conn., said she used to watch a lot of music videos on MTV and VH1 but has become increasingly turned off by the prevalent images of scantily dressed women. "Sometimes in the music videos these days, the women they have dancing in the background, they dress really cheap, and women don't really look like that and act like that," she said. "When I see that, I change the channel to something I like."
Hannah Montee, a 21-year-old college student in Liberal, Mo., said she had practically stopped watching TV because of all the vulgarity she saw. "I get tired of hearing all the cussing and the sexual innuendoes," she said.
Younger teens report that their parents keep a tight rein on their entertainment and technology habits. Nearly 3 out of 5 in this group say their parents restrict what they download, whether it's music, movies or other content. And although for many teenagers adult intrusion is unwelcome, parents can take some solace in the fact that about 15% of 12- to 17-year-olds answered "my parents" when asked how they found out about the music they'd most recently acquired.
Only 4% of the 12- to 17-year-olds reported that their parents didn't know much about their entertainment and communication choices. About a quarter of young teenage boys said they fought with their parents about video games or the music they listened to, whereas girls tended to fight with their parents about cellphone use.
(Girls play video games, but fewer than 1% of female poll respondents of all ages said they would choose a video game console if they could have only one item on a desert island from a list that also included a computer, a cellphone, a television, an iPod or an MP3 player.)
Renee Hampton, a 14-year-old ninth-grader in Chapmansboro, Tenn., battles with her parents over the time she spends online. Though most teens her age reported spending less than two hours a day on the computer, Renee said that this summer she was spending eight hours a day online. "My parents think I need to get outside more," she said. "I say that I get outside enough."
Renee loves Japanese cartoons and spends a lot of her online time creating animated music videos with anime characters, which she posts on the phenomenally popular site YouTube.com. Certain websites, she reported, are off-limits, but she wasn't sure why.
"Hey, Mom," she said. "Why are you against MySpace?"
"I have heard too many things about perverts on there and that it's not a good place for children," her mother replied.
"Mom," Renee said, "that's so stupid."
Renee may be frustrated, but her peers reported similar parental involvement. About a third of boys and girls ages 12 to 14 said their parents didn't let them go on social networking sites such as MySpace. About 15% of the kids 15 to 17 said their parents restricted access, but by age 18, parental control had melted away.
Another concern for adults is multi-tasking. For the most part, experts have not looked closely at how teens' and young adults' thinking skills, especially when it comes to homework, may be affected by what one software executive has dubbed "constant partial attention."
"It's like being in a candy store," said Gloria Mark, a UC Irvine professor who studies interactions between people and computers. "You aren't going to ignore the candy; you are going to try it all."
Mark, who has studied multi-tasking by 25- to 35-year-old high-tech workers, believes that the group is not much different from 12- to 24-year-olds, since the two groups grew up with similar technology. She frets that "a pattern of constant interruption" is creating a generation that will not know how to lose itself in thought.
"You know the concept of 'flow'?" asked Mark, referring to an idea popularized by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi about the benefits of complete absorption and focus. "You have to focus and concentrate, and this state of flow only comes when you do that…. Maybe it's an old-fogy notion, but it's an eternal one: Anyone with great ideas is going to have to spend some time deep in thought."
*
"Those text messages are a very powerful tool," said Jeff Blake, chairman of marketing and distribution for Sony Pictures Entertainment. "You certainly have the feeling that what they say in their text messages is just as important — if not more important — as the quote we put at the top of our ad. These kids listen to each other."
When it comes to the content of their entertainment, those surveyed tended to be quite tolerant of violence, gross-out humor and swearing in movies.
Yet a surprisingly high number of teenage boys (58%) and even more teenage girls (74%) said they were offended by material they felt disrespected women and girls. (How they reconcile that with their preference for the often-sexist aesthetic of rap music, the top music choice among respondents who specified a genre, is a topic for another poll.) Respondents who considered themselves religious were much more likely to be offended by gay and lesbian content. Young men 18 to 24 aren't offended by much; even material that disrespects women bothers only about 40% of this group.
Twelve-year-old Melina Erkan, a seventh-grader in Monroe, Conn., said she used to watch a lot of music videos on MTV and VH1 but has become increasingly turned off by the prevalent images of scantily dressed women. "Sometimes in the music videos these days, the women they have dancing in the background, they dress really cheap, and women don't really look like that and act like that," she said. "When I see that, I change the channel to something I like."
Hannah Montee, a 21-year-old college student in Liberal, Mo., said she had practically stopped watching TV because of all the vulgarity she saw. "I get tired of hearing all the cussing and the sexual innuendoes," she said.
Younger teens report that their parents keep a tight rein on their entertainment and technology habits. Nearly 3 out of 5 in this group say their parents restrict what they download, whether it's music, movies or other content. And although for many teenagers adult intrusion is unwelcome, parents can take some solace in the fact that about 15% of 12- to 17-year-olds answered "my parents" when asked how they found out about the music they'd most recently acquired.
Only 4% of the 12- to 17-year-olds reported that their parents didn't know much about their entertainment and communication choices. About a quarter of young teenage boys said they fought with their parents about video games or the music they listened to, whereas girls tended to fight with their parents about cellphone use.
(Girls play video games, but fewer than 1% of female poll respondents of all ages said they would choose a video game console if they could have only one item on a desert island from a list that also included a computer, a cellphone, a television, an iPod or an MP3 player.)
Renee Hampton, a 14-year-old ninth-grader in Chapmansboro, Tenn., battles with her parents over the time she spends online. Though most teens her age reported spending less than two hours a day on the computer, Renee said that this summer she was spending eight hours a day online. "My parents think I need to get outside more," she said. "I say that I get outside enough."
Renee loves Japanese cartoons and spends a lot of her online time creating animated music videos with anime characters, which she posts on the phenomenally popular site YouTube.com. Certain websites, she reported, are off-limits, but she wasn't sure why.
"Hey, Mom," she said. "Why are you against MySpace?"
"I have heard too many things about perverts on there and that it's not a good place for children," her mother replied.
"Mom," Renee said, "that's so stupid."
Renee may be frustrated, but her peers reported similar parental involvement. About a third of boys and girls ages 12 to 14 said their parents didn't let them go on social networking sites such as MySpace. About 15% of the kids 15 to 17 said their parents restricted access, but by age 18, parental control had melted away.
Another concern for adults is multi-tasking. For the most part, experts have not looked closely at how teens' and young adults' thinking skills, especially when it comes to homework, may be affected by what one software executive has dubbed "constant partial attention."
"It's like being in a candy store," said Gloria Mark, a UC Irvine professor who studies interactions between people and computers. "You aren't going to ignore the candy; you are going to try it all."
Mark, who has studied multi-tasking by 25- to 35-year-old high-tech workers, believes that the group is not much different from 12- to 24-year-olds, since the two groups grew up with similar technology. She frets that "a pattern of constant interruption" is creating a generation that will not know how to lose itself in thought.
"You know the concept of 'flow'?" asked Mark, referring to an idea popularized by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi about the benefits of complete absorption and focus. "You have to focus and concentrate, and this state of flow only comes when you do that…. Maybe it's an old-fogy notion, but it's an eternal one: Anyone with great ideas is going to have to spend some time deep in thought."
*
Digg
Twitter
Facebook
StumbleUpon
