Knowing the digital natives
Answers has some exceptional contributors and, with a 68% Best Answer percentage, right up amongst them is our Knowledge Partner TheSite.org. They’ve been answering questions on Answers for over a year, providing advice and feedback to some of the trickiest life questions the younger section of the Answers community are facing. TheSite.org is run by YouthNet, the London-based charity founded by the UK newsreader Martyn Lewis CBE. Their mission statement reads:
“YouthNet aims to create a socially inclusive environment where young people living in the UK are engaged, informed and inspired to achieve their ambitions and dreams.”
We’re excited to announce that from today, TheSite.org will be guest sponsors in the Family and Relationships category, asking rather as well as their usual answering for a month.
The last few weeks have been quite eventful for Youth.net. Last Wednesday, at the House of Commons no less, they launched the findings of an academic study (more info: here, download the full report: here) they have been supporting entitled “Life Support: Young people’s needs in a digital age.” It was written by Professor Michael Hulme (Associate Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies, Lancaster University) and seeks to understand in a deeper way how people age 16-24 – many of whom are so called “digital natives” who have never known an online or mobile-free life – use digital media.
“In the future as access becomes ever more mobile, multiplatform, faster and with richer media formats, in other words ever-on and everywhere, the need and demand for advice through the internet will become ever more critical.”
– Professor Michael Hulme
The report was covered by The Guardian and BBC News Online. It is incredibly detailed, containing more information than this blog could do justice but addresses important issues, through metrics and analysis, such as trust and security online, how young people seek advice online. Is asks and seeks to answer questions like: who are the Digital Natives? What issues do young people seek advice on via the internet?
Here are some of the report’s findings, expressed visually:
The report makes interesting reading, though if you’re reading this blog you may already find digital immersion second nature rather than it being news. The Answers and indeed TheSite.org are and will remain to be great sources of trusted information, as Professor Hulme himself concludes:
“The significance of the internet as the single first-advice source is illustrated by its ranking in the top three sources across all issues. When one takes search, online forums and online help-sites together the internet is first source for a quarter of the sample in the case of each issue.”
– Professor Michael Hulme
Five great Best Answers from TheSite.org
- Do you think ‘breaks’ ever work?
- How can I learn more about what it’s like being blind?
- How did you tell your parents about your first boyfriend?
- I am carrying my fella’s baby and I haven’t told him yet because I don’t know how to. How should I tell him?
- How do I cope when my parents are getting a divorce?
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by tashjudd: LifeSupport Appeal featured on the @YahooAnswersUK blog = so so exciting! http://bit.ly/16F9OP…
This is a fantastic blog. It drives home the fact that the young are the majority users and more attention should be focused on that group, as apposed to the vocal “minority” of old codgers trying to manipulate their behavior, and the ill enforcement of the community moderation system.
To the wiser representatives of the Yahoo! Answers site: Dump the us-against-them mentality, and the kung fu gear and outfit – the young are your bread & butter.
The young use the technology more. What a suprise. Who would have guessed.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to draw lines around groups of people, young, old, male, female, black or white. People don’t fit in tidy categories, the young don’t all act the same and neither do the old. This is a bit patronising toward both groups.
I wonder where the young people got their technology from eh? If we were to like pigeon-holed statistics, then the young form the largest group of p2p users stealing copyrighted materials and getting malware. They don’t care what they do, potentially infecting others with spam and worm and more, so they can download ‘Lady GaGa’