Archive for the ‘Youth Voting’ Category
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010
A recent article in the New York Times by Robin Marantz Hening explores the evolution of adolescence and how psychologists are struggling to describe the “unfinished” nature of twentysomething adults. According to some, like “Emerging Adulthood” author, Jeffrey Arnett, the twenties are an under-recognized stage in adult development, created by a rapid change in our economic and cultural space. In an information-based economy, Arnett sees“…the need for more education to survive in an information-based economy; fewer entry-level jobs even after all that schooling; young people feeling less rush to marry because of the general acceptance of premarital sex, cohabitation and birth control; and young women feeling less rush to have babies given their wide range of career options and their access to assisted reproductive technology if they delay pregnancy beyond their most fertile years.”
These realizations have lead to the creation of the Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood. Others aren’t quite so sure, nothing that the period of adult rootlessness that this life-stage is not universal – many, in fact, skip it, and progress towards marriage and child-rearing right after adolescence. Development scientist Richard Lerner believes that to be a “real” life-stage (in clinical terms), it has to be universal, meaning that there need to be real measureable consequences for those who skip it.
This debate has real significance. If a new life stage exists, societies need to design support services around the needs of an emerging population, who may not be defined around a specific age range. This has a real impact on how we spend our money on things like health care and education, or how companies market their products. If it’s not universal, however, it’s going to be difficult for institutions to get these activities right.
Whether strictly applicable to the field of developmental psychology or not, we at DECODE have been noticing the impact of the life stage on everything from civic participation to employee expectations and consumer behaviour. Young independents, as we call them (those out of school, and not with children of their own) are less likely to say they’ll vote or volunteer. It’s a period that appears to me marked by a distinct lack of connection to broader community.
Hening’s article raises as many questions as it answers, particularly for those in the demographic being discussed. But kudos to her, and to the Times, for at attempting to describe the demographic in an empathetic and considered manner.
Thursday, August 5th, 2010
A recent Microsoft study* showed that 78% of job recruiters conduct Internet searches on their clients in order to check out their backgrounds. This pattern has enabled a new breed of ‘reputation managers’, such as Gary Powers, to make millions promoting and defending 
their clients by attempting to control what appears about them online. Of course this has long happened in traditional PR; the difference with the Internet is that bad press is not tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapping. The potential longevity of negative content has increased the likelihood of it haunting an individual and blighting their future.
Gen Z (and the latter end of Gen Y) are without doubt best placed to confront these issues head on. They have already understood the ways in which different parts of their lives can clash online – ‘context collision’ – and found ways of avoiding this through the creation and management of multiple online profiles. They even make sure these ‘fakester’ profiles have different images, so combating the growing prevalence of facial recognition software – albeit often unwittingly. Perhaps those senior professionals, politicians and celebrities currently lining the likes of Mr Powers’ pocket could do worse than to learn from the ways in which Gen Z are beginning to play the reputation game.
*The complete study, carried out by Crosstab for Microsoft in 2009, is available as a pdf here:
download.microsoft.com/…/DPD_Online%20Reputation%20Research_ overview.pdf
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
DECODE’s new Twitter feed has already been selected as a “best of Twitter” according to Nacro Cymru, a long-established service provider for disadvantaged youth in Wales!
The link to Nacro’s site is here. You can follow our Twitter feed here.
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
In June, David Cameron appointed Internet Entrepreneur Martha Lane-Fox as the UK’s ‘Digital Champion’, giving her the task of getting the UK’s ‘unconnected’ online. The number of offline people in the UK is the equivalent of the populations of London, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow and Sheffield combined. Four million of those who are offline are society’s most disadvantaged, many of them young people from deprived backgrounds. However, 6.4 million of them are over-65′s who have never used the Internet, 63% of whom say they have no inclination to do so. In the light of these two very different demographics, is an across-the-board campaign the most effective and fair strategy?
The implications of not being online are increasingly clear. 90% of new jobs require computer skills, but 270,000 of the 1.5m unemployed people in the UK are not computer literate. Millions of jobs are only advertised online. The average household saves £560 a year by shopping and paying bills online. Government services are increasingly better-accessed online than offline. However, those who are disinclined to get online clearly need to be treated differently to those who are keen to be online but do not have the financial wherewithal. It is money, rather than motivation, which is the dis-enabling factor as far as youth are concerned.
See the full article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/jul/12/digital-divide-martha-lane-fox
A recent article in the New York Times by Robin Marantz Hening explores the evolution of adolescence and how psychologists are struggling to describe the “unfinished” nature of twentysomething adults. According to some, like “Emerging Adulthood” author, Jeffrey Arnett, the twenties are an under-recognized stage in adult development, created by a rapid change in our economic and cultural space. In an information-based economy, Arnett sees“…the need for more education to survive in an information-based economy; fewer entry-level jobs even after all that schooling; young people feeling less rush to marry because of the general acceptance of premarital sex, cohabitation and birth control; and young women feeling less rush to have babies given their wide range of career options and their access to assisted reproductive technology if they delay pregnancy beyond their most fertile years.”
