A small sample size, to be sure, but I’ve had three pieces of feedback from colleagues on my social telco comment. The first two were brief but confirmed the comments I made about teenagers and their communication habits:

this is my son…”Why would I get a landline from anyone?”…also reminds of PacBell circa 1995…..why would we offer and fund an internet service when all the services on it are free?

My teenagers do not answer the fixed phone even if it is ringing and they are standing right next to it – they know that it is never for them. I bet they don’t know who our provider is. They do use the broadband, and they do know who we get that from, because they compare speed and contract details with their mates.

That’s an interesting point about broadband. I know of other examples where this is the case, and teenagers are aware of and talk about the broadband provider used at home. I’d guess this is particularly prevalent among avid gamers but also to some extent among consumers of significant amounts of online video.

The third comment is interesting because it indicates the trends are similar even once the transition is made to college:

I have two teenagers.. one in college, one in high school.. Both have had cell phones for several years now. Both text much more than they talk, and both rely on Facebook quite extensively as a sort of ‘virtual mall’ i.e. place to hang out and chat with friends, check out members of the opposite sex, flirt, etc… What I find most surprising and interesting about my kids use of communications media is that they very rarely use email. It is seen as something of their parents generation. Something the college or high school uses for tuition notices or homework, etc. Whereas I would use an email distribution list to announce an event being hosted by a club I belong to, my daughter would create a group in Facebook and invite friends to it (and by extension, friends of friends, etc.) To her this is the normal mode of operation.

So my personal experience resonates strongly with your contention that wireline telcos had better find a way to participate and engage with the younger generation on their terms, or risk being relegated to the role of a broadband access utility. Similarly, MNOs should be working like dogs to make social networking easily and cheaply accessible from handheld devices. Google and Nokia probably ‘get’ this in a way the operators haven’t, so far.

I agree with all of this. And I think the point about email is not to be underestimated. Bizarre as it seems to those of us who are members of Generation X and experienced email for the first time as older teenagers or young adults, it’s already become passé to Generation Y. One to one communication has largely been replaced with many to many communication, and that trend will only continue.

By way of explanation, through the Church I belong to and through my wife’s large family I have frequent access to teenagers and get to observe them and their communication habits at close quarters (and many of them are among my “friends” on Facebook). Some of my observations in this blog are therefore based on that anecdotal evidence as well as on more statistically significant published sources such as surveys.

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