John’s posterous

As it turns out, Gen Y likes Twitter...Well, maybe not, but they are using it

Over the course of the year, there have been countless reports - some more substantial than others - but all with the same message: Generation Y is just not interested in Twitter. The reports generally cited members of this demographic as saying Twitter was "pointless" and "narcissistic."

Apparently, that's beginning to change. Well, maybe not their perception of Twitter, but certainly their use of it. Today, Twitter is now the second-youngest of the top four social networking sites. Its median age is 31. MySpace's is 26, LinkedIn is 39, and, as noted above, Facebook is 33.

When looking at specific younger demographic segments, and not just Gen Y, you can see strong Twitter uptake over the past year. For example, 37% of those 18-24 now use Twitter when only 19% did back in December 2008. And in the slightly older 25-34 bracket, a portion of which could still be considered Gen Y, 31% are now using the service compared to only 20% in December of last year. Combined, these two groups account for more than half of Twitter's network.

Why is Gen Y Now Flocking to Twitter?

So what gives? Why has Gen Y seemingly changed their minds about the social microblogging network that only months ago they avoided? A recent AP article offered up some ideas including the influx of celebrity tweeters, pressure from teachers or bosses, and it even hinted that Gen Y'ers entering the workplace have found value in the network for business-related purposes. That same sentiment was shared by Meredith Sires of Gen Y trend-watching site, YPulse. She theorizes that the rapid growth in the 18-24 demographic has to do more with the recent college graduates segment of that group finding ways to build entirely new online contact lists and create new identities more closely tied to information-sharing.

However, there have not been any in-depth studies that detail all the various reasons that Gen Y has chosen to adopt the microblogging network. To date, everything cited consists of just theories and speculations based on anecdotal evidence. But while all the ideas have merit, the theory that rings truest to our ears is the one put forth by Craig Watkins, a University of Texas professor and author of the book "The Young and the Digital." He says that what we're seeing is "...a kind of closing of that generational gap as it relates to technology." In other words, young and old alike are joining the same networks and socializing in the same spaces.

At this point, we would have to agree. After all, Gen Y (or Gen Z for that matter), hasn't all of a sudden flocked to some new social networking site where the majority of the online user base mostly consists of their peers. Although some niche sites like FML, Failblog, TextsFromLastNight, and Sporcle have apparently attracted this young crowd, their numbers are dwarfed by those of Facebook, Twitter, and the like. It seems as if Gen Y is simply content to join the older adults on the top social networks of today and not strike out on their own...and vice versa. The older social networking users, in turn, never really set up shop on networks designed just for them like the (now "hibernating") Boomj, a social network for baby boomers, or the online old folks home eons.com. They, too, have gravitated towards Facebook and Twitter.

Will this ever change? Will there ever be another network dominated by the digital youth? Of course no one can know for sure, but odds are that unless it's a closed-off network where entry is barred to those over a certain age, any new social network will have trouble keeping the grown-ups out these days. And even if some such network ever sprang into existence, it may struggle to attract the Gen Y members it desires - especially since they're so content to socialize on the sites they already use. And now that they've added Twitter to that list, the challenge to draw them away to yet another social networking site may prove even more difficult than before.

Note: statistics in this article are from Pew Internet's Recent Report on Twitter for Fall 2009

By JEFFREY ZASLOW

Bryan Derballa for The Wall Street Journal

High-school seniors in Brooklyn, N.Y., sending text messages after school.

A 17-year-old boy, caught sending text messages in class, was recently sent to the vice principal's office at Millwood High School in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The vice principal, Steve Gallagher, told the boy he needed to focus on the teacher, not his cellphone. The boy listened politely and nodded, and that's when Mr. Gallagher noticed the student's fingers moving on his lap.

He was texting while being reprimanded for texting.

"It was a subconscious act," says Mr. Gallagher, who took the phone away. "Young people today are connected socially from the moment they open their eyes in the morning until they close their eyes at night. It's compulsive."

Because so many people in their teens and early 20s are in this constant whir of socializing—accessible to each other every minute of the day via cellphone, instant messaging and social-networking Web sites—there are a host of new questions that need to be addressed in schools, in the workplace and at home. Chief among them: How much work can "hyper-socializing" students or employees really accomplish if they are holding multiple conversations with friends via text-messaging, or are obsessively checking Facebook?

Some argue they can accomplish a great deal: This generation has a gift for multitasking, and because they've integrated technology into their lives, their ability to remain connected to each other will serve them and their employers well. Others contend that these hyper-socializers are serial time-wasters, that the bonds between them are shallow, and that their face-to-face interpersonal skills are poor.

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Bryan Derballa for The Wall Street Journal

Does text messaging prepare one to interact in the workplace?

"The unspoken attitude is, 'I don't need you. I have the Internet,'" says P.M. Forni, the 58-year-old director of the Civility Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, which studies politeness and manners. "The Net provides an opportunity to play hide-and-seek, to say and not say, to be truthful and to pretend. There is a lot of communication going on that is futile and trivial."

That's far too harsh an assessment, says Ben Bajarin, 32, a technology analyst at Creative Strategies, a consulting firm in Campbell, Calif. He argues that because young people are so adept at multimedia socializing, their social skills are actually strengthened. They're good at "managing conversations" and getting to the pithy essence of an issue, he says, which will help them in the workplace.

While their older colleagues waste time holding meetings or engaging in long phone conversations, young people have an ability to sum things up in one-sentence text messages, Mr. Bajarin says. "They know how to optimize and prioritize. They will call or set up a meeting if it's needed. If not, they text." And given their vast network of online acquaintances, they discover people who can become true friends or valued business colleagues—people they wouldn't have been able to find in the pre-Internet era.

It's hard to quantify whether the abbreviated interchanges of text messaging are beneficial in the workplace, but this much is known: Young workers spend more time than older workers socializing via their devices or entertaining themselves online. In a 2008 survey for Salary.com, 53% of those under age 24 said this was their primary "time wasting" activity while at work, compared to just 34% for those between ages 41 and 65.

Online social networking while at work hampers business productivity, according to a new study by Nucleus Research. Almost two-thirds of those with Facebook accounts access them at their workplaces, the study found, which translates to a 1.5% loss of total employee productivity across an organization.

A study this year by psychology students at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Ga., found that the more time young people spend on Facebook, the more likely they are to have lower grades and weaker study habits. Heavy Facebook users show signs of being more gregarious, but they are also more likely to be anxious, hostile or depressed. (Doctors, meanwhile, are now blaming addictions to "night texting" for disturbing the sleep patterns of teens.)

Weaned From Facebook

Almost a quarter of today's teens check Facebook more than 10 times a day, according to a 2009 survey by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit group that monitors media's impact on families. Will these young people wean themselves of this habit once they enter the work force, or will employers come to see texting and "social-network checking" as accepted parts of the workday?

Think back. When today's older workers were in their 20s, they might have taken a break on the job to call friends and make after-work plans. In those earlier eras, companies discouraged non-business-related calls, and someone who made personal calls all day risked being fired. It was impossible to envision the constant back-and-forth texting that defines interactions among young people today.

However, now that these older workers are managers, they're being advised by consultants to accept the changed dynamics, so long as young employees are doing good work and meeting deadlines.

Educators are also being asked by parents, students and educational strategists to reconsider their rules. In past generations, students got in trouble for passing notes in class. Now students are adept at texting with their phones still in their pockets, says 40-year-old Mr. Gallagher, the vice principal, "and they're able to communicate with someone one floor down and three rows over. Students are just fundamentally different today. They will take suspensions rather than give up their phones."

It may feel like a strange new world, but Mr. Gallagher's wife, Holly, is among those who say it's time for educators and employers to embrace it. As a human-resources manager, she believes that as the generation now aged 15 to 24 enters the work force, managers must adjust to the new ways they socialize and communicate.

For instance, past generations accepted that corporations were hierarchical. There were supervisors, managers and senior managers, and you communicated your questions to your immediate superior. "Young people today want accessibility," says Ms. Gallagher, 41. "If they have a problem or suggestion, they'll email or text senior managers, or even the CEO. They don't have the old-school notion that there are appropriate communication models. They've grown up in a freedom-of-information era."

Preparing for Work

She thinks the constant text messaging among teens can serve as good preparation for workplace interactions. "In a lot of corporations, if something goes wrong, it's because so-and-so didn't talk to so-and-so," Ms. Gallagher says. "But with young people, simultaneous conversations are always happening. This reduces the chances of not reaching success because the right people didn't connect."

More schools are now allowing students to use their cellphones between classes, or even as a learning tool in the classroom. Some teachers are having students text their friends during classes to share feedback on what's being taught. The mantra among educators who try to be enlightened: It's no longer about attention span. It's about attention scope—being able to concentrate on many things at once.

Steve Gallagher is finding it futile to argue with his students that they should go a seven-hour school day without their texting devices. As he explains: "It's like talking to kids about why they don't need air."

—Email: Jeffrey.Zaslow@ wsj.com

The Way I Work: Jason Fried of 37Signals

Jason Fried hates lame meetings, tech companies that don't generate revenue, and companies that treat their employees like children. A peek inside his typical workday

As told to Liz Welch |  Nov 1, 2009

Chris Strong

BOOK BREAK Jason Fried, who sometimes works from his house in Chicago, likes to read in the afternoon. But only nonfiction.

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You could sum up Jason Fried's philosophy as "less is more." Except that he hates that expression, because, he says, it still "implies that more is better." Fried prefers "less is less." It's a core principle of 37Signals, the Chicago-based company he launched in 1999 with Ernest Kim and Carlos Segura. The company started as a Web design firm. Then, in 2003, Fried hired David Heinemeier Hansson, a Danish programmer, to write software to keep the company's design projects organized. Soon, clients began requesting the program, and by 2005, software development eclipsed design in both revenue and focus. Today, 37Signals, which is run by Fried and Hansson, has a staff of 16 and more than three million customers who use the company's Web-based applications, such as Basecamp and Campfire, to collaborate and manage projects. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, is the company's only investor. Fried, 35, isn't afraid to do things differently or to express his opinions. He condemns traditional corporate office culture, with its 40-hour workweeks and constant meetings, and shoots down many of his customers' suggestions. And he's not opposed to a little goofing off in the afternoon.

I don't use an alarm clock. Lately, I've been naturally waking up at 6:38 every morning. I used to wake up at 7:31 every morning, which is actually when I was born. So that was kind of creepy.

I try not to grab my phone and check e-mails first thing. I used to do that, and it's just not good for you. Instead, I'll go and brew some tea and try and relax a little bit. But the computer's always kind of pulling me toward it, so I end up looking at e-mail sooner than I'd like to.

I love tea. I drink green tea and white tea mostly. I play with different varieties depending on my mood. These days, I'm really into matcha, which is a powdered tea. You add hot water and use a bamboo whisk to make a frothy liquid. You actually consume the tea leaves. I get it online, because there's better selection, and I'm lazy.

For breakfast, I usually eat a couple of maple-infused Van's waffles and a handful of pistachios. Unless it's really cold -- then I have oatmeal. Three mornings a week, I go to the gym for an hour. I've been going to a trainer for two years. Otherwise, I think I'd blow it off.

Then sometimes I head in to the office. I might work from home for a week and then get bored of that, so I will spend the next week at the office. I live about two miles from my office. I drive there most of the time. I should bike more, but I saw someone on a bike get hit two years ago, and it really freaked me out. I figure I'm better off driving.

I usually get to work between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. Of the 16 people at the company, eight of us live here in Chicago. Employees come to the office if and when they feel like it, or else they work from home. I don't believe in the 40-hour workweek, so we cut all that BS about being somewhere for a certain number of hours. I have no idea how many hours my employees work -- I just know they get the work done.

I spend most of my day writing. I write everything on our website. Communicating clearly is my top priority. Web writing is terrible, and corporate sites are the worst. You don't know what they do, who they are, or what they stand for. I spend a lot of time taking a sentence and reworking it until it's perfect. I love the editing process.

Our blog has more than 100,000 readers, but I don't post every day. I write when I have something specific to say. I recently wrote a scathing piece on the tech media. It really bothers me that the definition of success has changed from profits to followers, friends, and feed count. This crap doesn't mean anything. Kids are coming out of school thinking, I want to start the next YouTube or Facebook. If a restaurant served more food than everybody else but lost money on every diner, would it be successful? No. But on the Internet, for some reason, if you have more users than everyone else, you're successful. No, you're not.

I spend another good portion of my day thinking about how to make things less complicated. In the software world, the first, second, and third versions of any product are really pretty good, because everyone can use them. Then companies start adding more and more stuff to keep their existing customers happy. But you end up dying with your customer base, because the software is too complicated for a newcomer. We keep our products simple. I'd rather have people grow out of our products, as long as more people are growing into them.

I used to handle all the customer service e-mails, but now we have two people dedicated to that. I still get involved, and so does my partner, David [Heinemeier Hansson], if something has escalated and the standard operating procedure doesn't apply. If anyone ever writes us with a complaint, our stance is it's our fault -- for not being clear enough or not making something work the way it should. I'm constantly keeping an eye on the problems that keep arising, and then we address them. But I don't keep a list of all the complaints, because that's too time-consuming. We also get thousands of suggestions. The default answer is always no. A lot of companies lie and say, "Sure, we'll do that." We never make promises that we can't keep, so we say, "We'll keep that in mind." Some customers don't like that.

We first designed Basecamp for our own needs, to help better organize our projects. That's our philosophy: Build what we like, and other people will like it, too. Ta-Da was built to make simple to-do lists. Backpack is a digital version of a filing cabinet. We created Writeboard when we were collaborating on Getting Real, our first self-published business book, to track all of the back-and-forth drafts and keep us from going insane. Even though there are better products out there, I still use Writeboard, because it's dead simple. In fact, we just wrote our second book, Rework, using that program.

These books are our cookbooks. I look to chefs for inspiration. Mario Batali is a great chef who invites a camera into his kitchen and shares his recipes. It's a great business model. In the business world, people are proprietary -- they're afraid to share. Rework is our recipe for doing business.

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