New Media Academy Study - This Is Not Gen-X or Gen-Y - This Is the 'Tethered Generation

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Oct 05, 2012
by Salzburg Global Staff
New Media Academy Study - This Is Not Gen-X or Gen-Y - This Is the 'Tethered Generation

Mobile Phones Put the 'Social' in Social Media

Students from partner universities of Salzburg Global Seminar’s Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change have contributed to a new study on the mobile phone habits of young people, published on Wednesday, October 3. 

The Tethered World study, directed by Paul Mihailidis, Program Director of the Academy, evaluated the mobile habits of 800 students of 52 nationalities, attending Academy partner universities in eight countries, on three continents, and found that despite living all over the world, the students had surprisingly similar experiences. 

In her article for the Huffington Post, Academy co-founder, Susan Moeller, director of the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda (ICMPA) at the University of Maryland, outlines five key findings:

Facebook and Twitter not only are the dominant presence in the lives of students across the globe, they are having a homogenizing effect on how students live around the world. Whether in Bournemouth, Beirut or Boston, students reported that Facebook, Twitter and other social networks were the way they hear from and communicate to their friends and the world. "Twitter has become the new CNN," as one student said. And the study suggests that for students, mobile phones are the new remote controls.

Mobile phones are used to share and comment on other people's social spaces -- and information and news of all kinds is especially valued when it has a great "gee whiz" factor that makes young adults want to pass it on. Said one student: "I don't usually share articles, just some great music news, or a YouTube video that I think is funny or is a music video." 

This is not Gen-X or Gen-Y: this is the 'Tethered Generation.' Around the world, mobile phones are integral to students' identity. Students self-reported that they were "addicted," claiming it is literally "impossible" to go a day without a phone. The tracking data reinforced students' heavy use across the world. As one student reported: "I check my phone literally every 2 or 3 minutes for updates on text messages, Twitter, or even Facebook." Said another: "The mobile phone has become a part of us: our best friend who will save all our secrets, pleasures and sorrows."

Students use mobile phones to network with others -- and being a part of that network is more real than the real world. For students, phones don't just facilitate conversations, they connect them to others in ways that are not only satisfying, but increasingly paramount. Observed one student: "One thing that seems kind of funny to me is one experience that I had last week, we had an earthquake, a big one, and a lot of people instead of being alert and try to save themselves, they just started tweeting about what was going on. They were so attached to their social networks that they cared more about letting people know what was happening instead of evacuating the building."

On mobile phones, apps are like cable TV. While they appreciate the thousands of options, students really only use a few apps. While a majority of the students in the study had 16 or more apps on their phones, they reported they only used three or four apps regularly. Said one student: "The three apps that I use the most [are] Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I love being able to see what my friends are up to and look at their pictures. I also enjoy the diverse combination of news articles, humor, and lifestyle pieces that these various platforms provide."

For the course of the study held in spring this year, researchers had the students track their mobile use over a 24-hour period. 

“Following the day-long tracking, the students completed an in-depth survey and wrote a 500-word narrative about their media habits,†explains Moeller. 

Whilst the study found that through mobile phones the students now had access to and participation in “areas of the media which we would otherwise be excluded fromâ€, Moeller added that there was one aspect the ‘tethered generation' should be cautious of: data access and abuse. 

“Our lives have become available to anyone who can access them -- which is just about everyone everywhere in the world,†said one student. 


The Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change is a three-week summer program held by Salzburg Global Seminar and the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda (ICMPA), at Schloss Leopoldskron, Salzburg, Austria, bringing together undergraduate and graduate students from a broad variety of top universities around the world. Faculty and deans of these universities participate in the Academy, giving lectures and acting as mentors to small teams of students to explore the media’s role in global progress, pluralism, and citizenship.