Nielsen: Teens Love Texting

January 6, 2012 Comments off

According to the marketing research firm Nielsen, teenagers are less likely to hold actual phone conversations and more likely than any other age demographic to send text messages instead.

In the past year, teens helped to triple mobile data consumption in the United States, contributing to what Nielsen calls a “mobile data tsunami.”

The number of messages exchanged monthly by teens averaged 3,417 per teen in the  third quarter of 2011, the period studied. That’s the equivalent of an average of seven messages per waking hour.

Interestingly, teenage girls were more likely to send text messages – 40 percent more messages than boys, or an average of 3,952 text messages in a month compared with 2,815 text messages a month. But overall, teen males had the most cellular activity – including use of mobile Internet, social networking, email, app downloads, etc., consuming 382 megabytes per month while females used 266 megabytes.

A tsunami indeed.

Cruise Line: Use ‘Shellphone’ Instead

December 26, 2011 Comments off

We just love the new unplugged advertising campaign launched recently by Royal Carribean, the cruise line that takes travelers to sunny destinations throughout the Carribean.

In the advertisement, a young woman holds a conch shell to her ear. The shell presumably whispers of the sea and makes us want to get away from it all.

Viewers of the ad are encouraged to put down their cell phones and tune into “shellphones.”

A tagline reads: “The Sea is Calling. Answer it Royally.” Other ads referring to the “shellphone” inform readers that: “You don’t recharge it. It recharges you.”

Of course one doesn’t need a luxury cruise to get away from the hectic pace of life symbolized by our cell phones.

The next time you need to get away from it all, simply click the “off” button on your cell phone. You might even consider a cruise to someplace sunny – even if it’s only in your imagination.

 

Facebook Changes Meaning of Serving ‘Over There’

December 23, 2011 Comments off

Once upon a time, the holiday season brought increased volumes of mail to our servicemen and women serving overseas. But these days, mail sent “over there,” has taken on a whole new meaning, thanks to social media sites like Facebook and online video phone services like Skype.

Just how significantly social media networks and fast Internet connections are changing what it means to be deployed to a war zone is something the military is now studying, according to a recent news report by USA Today.

Many servicemen and women claim that online services like Facebook and Skype make serving in remote parts of the world more tolerable because they allow almost daily interactions with family and friends. But the military is also concerned that they may be distractions that could have deadly consequences; hence the study.

“No other military in the history of warfare has had that level of access to their families,” said Benjamin Karney, a social psychologist who studies marriage and family relationships in the military, in an interview with USA Today. Karney is one of three researchers involved in a three-year study for the Department of Defense (DOD), which is tracking how military families handle stress before, during and after deployments.

According to Karney, the DOD wants to find out if online access to family members strengthens family bonds and eases the post-deployment transition to civilian life or whether it might distract servicemen and women from their mission and expose pre-existing problems in their personal lives.

Not surprisingly, Karney suspects the answer might be a little of both.

 

Unplugging at the Library

November 28, 2011 Comments off

American Libraries, the journal of the American Library Association, recently published a provocative thought piece by two practicing librarians who questioned whether libraries should institute tech-free zones.

What authors Amanda Wakaruk and Marc Truitt had in mind was a network of “safe harbors . . . free of external distractions of computers, cellphones, and social networking tools, allowing sustained focus and contemplation.” They referred to these tech-free spaces as “Waldon zones,” summoning the image of Thoreau, who withdrew from civilization in order to ponder and reflect upon nature at Waldon Pond.

Even reading rooms are no longer sacrosanct, Wakaruk and Truitt point out. Although these areas are supposed to be quiet zones, anyone who has used a reading room lately is probably all too aware of the intrusive sound of clacking laptop keys or muffled cell phones ringing in the background.

Yet, we at Unplug & Reconnect were heartened to read that there’s a trend in which libraries are starting to establish such tech-free zones. The authors point to Stephens College, which recently began requiring students to deposit their cell phones at the door, as one example.

To be sure, we couldn’t imagine today’s modern libraries without the wondrous technology that makes searching for information so much more efficient (remember the old Dewey Decimal System card cabinets, anyone?). But we think it’s a good idea for library patrons to have a quiet place to read and to reflect, as did Thoreau, once they’ve found the reference material the library’s search system helped them to find so effortlessly.

Time will tell whether or not a movement to unplug at the library gains any traction. The idea certainly has our vote.

 

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