14 DAY TRIAL // Do you remember the feeling you had when purchasing your own music tapes or audio CDs? For me, this was the main force pushing me forward when I was a teenager, but today, things are not the same. Let's take a look at this week's study now, shall we?
Americans aged 13 to 18 spend more than 72 hours a week using electronic media, and that's more than most people spend at their jobs! Don't worry, because since no matter what you do at work, you still have to spend a fixed amount of time there (more or less, depends on the job, of course), teenagers are known for multitasking, and the study counts individual media activities separately. For example, if a teenager listens to music and uses the computer for two hours, the amount of time added to the weekly total is four hours.
Today's teens are swimming in a sea of technologic gadgets and media sources - cell phones, music players, television, Internet and video games, so it's no surprise that "Teen life has become a theatrical, self-directed media production", according to Jim Taylor, vice chairman of the Harrison Group, which conducted the study we're talking about here.
An interesting aspect of the study underlines the purchasing power of today's teens that comes from part-time jobs and, of course, their parents' money. Teenagers spend almost 200 billion dollars annually on eating out, clothes, movies, cars and cell phones, according to Harrison Group's report, and remember that we're talking about the estimated 25 million teenagers in the US, not the entire planet!
When it comes to the technology part, the number of teens having an iPod jumped from 1 percent in 2003 to an amazing 33% in 2006, and the rate is accelerating, no doubt about that! With news like this, the future looks really bright for Apple, and I don't even dare to predict next year's results!