This article titled, Virtual Pleasures, in the Economist looks at a really important issue – what is really driving young people (men) in conservative societies to spend time online? I think the issue raised in this article is a very valid one - whether the online social media will eventually provide a way for young people to collaborate on political causes or will it just become a medium to seek out self pleasures? For instance, the article points out that in India the young people spend most of their online time browsing pages of matchmaking websites to find a spouse. The online digital media in India is providing opportunities for romance and dating which are otherwise considered a taboo in traditional Indian society.

I think the challenge is – how to use social media to get young people more interested in politics and causes which are of social importance and not just use it for personal pleasures and consumption?

Internet is redefining the news media. In this article, Ronald A. Yaros, assistant professor of journalism at UMD and director of the Lab for Communicating Complexity with Multimedia, writes about the complexity facing the journalists in this digital world in Nieman Reports, published by Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. 

The evolution of internet has changed the way young people receive and process news. He writes that, ”The technologies (that deliver news) and the news audience of 2019, will be very different than what they are today”. Therefore, it is imperative that we understand “how digital natives now use media for entertainment, information, education and social networking.”

According to him, there are three phases of how technology is adopted:

1. Awareness and exploration of the new technological tools
2. Learning how to use the new tools
3. Applying these new tools to daily life.

Digital Natives (the young people) who blog and social network are in third phase of adoption, whereas the news organizations are in the second phase. This gap, presents a challenge to the traditional media journalists and the news organizations, about how to communicate with an audience, who is tech-savvy and ”values shorter, fact-driven multimedia.”

He proposes a PICK model for future journalism, which when combined with traditional journalistic values may be effective in engaging audience. 

PICK stands for:

1. Personalization

2. Involvement

3. Contiguity (or coherence)

4. Minimal distractions (cognitive kick-outs)

PICK defines multimedia as an environment (i.e. a full page or entire Web site) where multiple elements—hypertext, video, slideshows, blogs, forums, graphics and animation—are presented with text and personalized to the user.

1. Personalizing the News:

Personalization in news means, “the extent to which a user can choose content congruent with his or her interests.” “NewsSEEN” is a prototype in research phase, which not only provides news, but also priortizes news by level of interest. The basic purpose of NewsSEEN is to see ”how professionally produced, personalized content (or PPP) can be combined with, yet differentiated from, citizen-produced content.” Although interactivity is very important in digital news, too much of it can kill the reader’s interest, therefore, it is important to have right amount of interactivity.

2. Involvement:

It is “the degree to which users input choices and/or content.” The level of involvement may vary, “for example, Clicking a “play” button for a one-minute video represents much less involvement than reading a few sentences, choosing steps in a related animation, selecting a 10-second video, and then posting comments about the story. “

3. Contiguity:

“Contiguity in multimedia is how the elements of hypertext, photos, animation, slides, links, blogs, video and audio, all combine to communicate one coherent message.” It only takes 50 milliseconds for a reader to form an opinion, and if there is no coherency in the content, the readers terminate their engagement which he calls “kick - outs.”

4.  Kick – outs: It is basically the termination of engagement with the content. There are many reasons why an audience may lose interest in the content, and some of these can be controllable. For example,

“The most obvious kick-out is a broken link, but others include too much text, lengthy video, pop-up windows, unfamiliar terms, confusing graphics, or interactive animation that’s too complex.”

So the challenge is to enhance how news is presented and recogninze how to prevent kick-outs.

Adopting the PICK news model, does not mean abandoning traditional journalism values, but the challenge he says, is to combine effectively

“techniques of personalization, involvement, contiguity and minimal kick-outs with clear, accurate, ethical journalism.”

PICK model in my opinion, outlines some of the key points to consider when delivering news via digital media. For some time now, since I started this blog, I have been using twitter, both for social networking and to receive news and the concepts of PICK model apply to the form in which news is delivered on Twitter. However, I also think that it would be important to understand the “expectations” with which digital audience come to the digital platform to receive news.

Cell phones are extremely popular among young people across the world. Cross-cultural research has revealed interesting similarities and differences regarding cell phone usage by young people from different countries. In this post, I report on a study on cell phone usage by college students in USA.

Aoki & Downes (2003) investigated cell phone usage among American college students from a behavioral and psychological perspective. Their objectives were to (a) find out why college students acquired a cell phone and (b) to determine the relationship between cell phone usage behavior and intrinsic motivations about usage.

They used mixed - methods – both qualitative (focus groups) and quantitative (surveys) to collect data. They conducted four focus groups (32 students) and administered a survey to 137 students.

Their results from focus groups indicated that there were nine motivational themes for which college students acquired a cell phone. These were – personal safety, financial incentive, information access, social interaction, parental contacts, time management/coordination, dependency, image and privacy management.

With regard to the behavioral characteristics – most respondents obtained a cell phone when they entered college; the majority made five or fewer calls per day; majority of calls were made from “on the street” followed by “at home” and “at school”; most often the cell phones were used to call “friends and relatives”, “boyfriends or girlfriends”, and “immediate family members”; majority made calls from their cell phones at night and more than half the respondents said that their parents were paying their phone bills.

By performing a Q factor analysis, they identified five groups of cell phone users -

1. Group 1 – “Cost conscious” – This was the largest group and believed that cell phone is the cheaper way to make calls. They spend a lot of time receiving calls and talking on cell phones but did not make most of the calls.

2. Group 2 – “Security/Safety conscious” – This group felt that having a cell phone makes them feel safer. They used cell phones very minimally.

3. Group 3 – “Dependent” – The students in this group felt lost without their cell phones and they used the cell phones frequently.

4. Group 4 – “Sophisticated” – For this group, owning a cell phone equaled to having a style statement. They were the early adopters among the group and also tend to make the most number of calls.

5. Group 5 – “Practical users” – This group used the cell phone because it made sense. They did not care about the style or believed it was a necessity. They used the cell phones moderately when they needed to use it.

This study showed that even within a homogeneous group such as college students there could be distinct groups of users. It would be interesting to see if these groups would have similar characteristics in other cultures as well.