Head Tale

You can read the report then the MetaFilter commentary to get an idea of why this report garnered such a reaction – positive, negative and just in terms of provoking conversation.

The biggest thing to catch my eye?  In a report which has sections dedicated to discussing how young people use Radio, Television, Newspapers, Gaming, Internet, Directories (eg. Yellow Pages), Viral/Outdoor Marketing, Music, Cinema and Mobile Devices, there is not a single mention of books (not even graphic novels which is what many of us think as what “the kids” are reading these days).  There's also only one mention of libraries and that in the context of a place where young people can get work done since you wouldn't want to do that on your home Internet connection.

“Home use is mainly used for fun (such as social networking) whilst school (or library) use is for work.”

Morgan Stanley, the company that released this report stress that this is the opinion of one single teenager.  And it's written from a UK perspective so there are some major differences with North American culture. 

(Oh, and a funny story about “whilst”.  When I was in England on exchange, one of the American exchange students didn't have time to do one of his assignments.  So instead, he paid one of the UK students to write it for him.  He might've got away with it too – except he didn't bother to even read the paper before handing it in so all the “whilst's” sprinkled throughout were a pretty big tip-off to the prof that something was up.  I mean, we all absorbed a bit of English culture and custom on that trip but changing a person's entire writing style was probably a bit much! )