Mele’s Musings

College Students Work Without a Wire

The future is here, and it favors mobility over all else.

Picture: img.coxnewsweb.com

Article excerpt:   Epitomizing the mobile lifestyle. Today’s collegians are becoming road warriors, ditching their desktop PCs for laptops and mobile phones.  Seven out of 10 US college students surveyed in August 2008 owned a laptop, while student desktop PC ownership dropped from more than 90% to just over 50% in five years, according to an Alloy Media + Marketing-sponsored study conducted by Harris Interactive.  “Students have come to expect 24/7 connectedness and mobility,” said Samantha Skey, EVP at Alloy, in a statement. “Now flexibility and ease of function to socialize, communicate and be entertained is what they’re demanding.”  TV ads may work differently with the university set. A full 62% of students surveyed said they watched TV online. One-quarter of respondents went to major network Websites, but more than one-third went to YouTube to get their TV. The balance used other video sites like Veoh, Hulu and Joost.
The rest: eMarketer.com

Musing:  Not a very long article, but it does bring up some interesting data points about how college students are different in terms of media consumption and expectations – all in line with things we have been observing for some time.  The implication is not just that this “new generation” is interacting with media and technology differently, but that they are the edge case for what will become more common among the population in general.  Expecting to be always connected, expecting to be able to consume when and how they want – instant gratification – are going to become more and more the norm.�