informal education as seen by the policy wonk folk

launched by "the voice of the MSN GENERATION" - duh duh duuuuuuh

this is a really good series. the first one last week destroyed the notion of youth being "the connected generation" and this one debunks the idea that "kids are growing up quickly these days". Agreed!

An exercise in how not to categorise teens....

Some cracking videos here from Shirky and Boyd; the best speakers around on social software.

"The goal of Ypulse Research is to aggregate and resell market research about youth (tweens, teens, twentysomethings"

"Young People are a highly amorphous, fragmented group of individuals. They are a varied group who are changing rapidly between the ages of 16 to 24. At this phase in life there are enormous differences between genders, ages and life-stages" so typologies

Teens are not as technlogically savvy as popular discourse might suggest. Their use of digital media is to satisfy core user needs, mainly centered around socialising, playing games and downloading music. Technology as a means to an end.

list of publications and papers about research conducted into the digital life of 'youth'

Young Americans spend more than 72 hours a week using the Internet, cell phones, television, music and video games, a study says.