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Youth Are Our Present

Youth Are Our Present – Executive Summary

This document provides commentary and the responses to a survey regarding communication trends among today’s American rural youth. The purpose of this survey was to understand how rural youth from OPASTCO-member (or equivalent) communities consume media and technology. Sharing of some of the results from this survey took place during the panel, Youth Are Our Present, at OPASTCO’s 44th Annual Summer Convention.

The results of the survey reinforce the idea that younger people are among the first to embrace new approaches to communications and entertainment, such as text messaging, social communities and mobility. Still, like people of all ages, things such as ease of use and value resonate with the younger generation. Some other key points from this survey include:

  • Two-thirds (2/3) of the rural youth consider themselves or their siblings to be the most tech-savvy in their household.
  • TV still consumes the most amount of a youth’s time, although they spend a significant portion of their waking hours using computer and texting via mobile phones. The landline telephone consumes the least amount of a youth’s time.
  • Youth tend to be most willing to pay for cell phone service, in part, because they perceive it to offer the best value and utility for the money.
  • Social communities are just behind cell phones as ways to communicate with their peers. The popularity of these two forms of communication will probably lead to increased intertwining of social communities with mobile services.
  • Despite all of the messaging and marketing that the youth are bombarded with, friends and family remain the biggest influences on the adoption of new technology and associated services.
  • Ease of use is the most important factor in the selection of a cell phone, while the basic feature of being able to make a callis the most important.
  • The sources of the video the youth watch are definitely different from previous generations, as broadcast television ranked fourth behind, cable television, video stores and the Internet.
  • Youth are producers of video content, as 46% have uploaded or plan to upload videos to the Internet, which has long-term implications for the upstream bandwidth requirements.

Author Ken Pyle, Managing Editor

By Ken Pyle, Managing Editor

Ken Pyle is Marketing Director for the Broadband Forum. The mission of this 25+-year-old non-profit “is to unlock the potential for new markets and profitable revenue growth by leveraging new technologies and standards in the home, intelligent small business, and multi-user infrastructure of the broadband network.”

He is also co-founder of Viodi, LLC and Managing Editor of the Viodi View, a publication focused on the rural broadband ecosystem, autonomous vehicles, and electric aviation. He has edited and produced numerous multimedia projects for NTCA, US Telecom and Viodi. Pyle is the producer of Viodi’s Local Content Workshop, the Video Production Crash Course at NAB, as well as ViodiTV. He has been intimately involved in Viodi’s consulting projects and has created processes for clients to use for their PPV and VOD operations, as well authored reports on the independent telco market.

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3 replies on “Youth Are Our Present”

Siting in the counselor’s office 45 years ago, I can still hear the lady saying, “You’re a pretty smart boy, but you don’t apply yourself”. Abgout 40 years later, sitting in my son’s counselor’s office, I can still hear the lady saying, “You’re son’s a pretty smart boy, but he doesn’t apply himself” while and knowing that was because this woman and her peers were boring him silly. So, I said, “That’s the same thing that they said to me when I was his age and I’m really disappointed that you haven’t fixed that problem after 40 years. Pick a number depending on what part of the world that you consider the foundation of humanity and it’s going to be a pretty big number and we have been raising kids for that long. So, pick 20,000 years, which is not the largest number, but is the possible number for places like Ireland, an the question arises. Why do we still need parenting tips?

Yeah, I learned to keep my mouth shut when talking to a counselor, but that’s another story. Funny, that the counselor said the same thing to your son, some 40 years later.

I sure need the parenting tips. I am always learning something new or relearning what I should have learned the first time.

Speaking of bored students, I am looking forward to having one of them, who came up with a solution to make school more interesting, speak at the Media Innovations Summit;

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