The Next Generation of Web Workers
While not stricly work-related, this post by Alan Patrick of Broadstuff caught our eye. Seems New Media Age did a sponsored study on the mobile web usage of children between the ages of 6 and 13. We were reassured to find out that the next generation of the mobile workforce isn’t exactly updating spreadsheets and distributing white papers on their cell phones — yet:
Children like to share music with their friends and most of them play
music on the move. They spend money on downloading ring tones and other resources. A minority access the Internet on their phones.
More from the report [PDF] after the jump.
- 80% use MP3 players, mobile phones or iPods to listen to music on the move.
- 29% of the children say they use the Internet on their mobile phones at least once a month
- 29% say they share music with their friends via Bluetooth
- 22 to 25% download ring tones, music, games and pictures.
- 21% say they like to play music out loud in public places.
- 22% send emails using their mobile phones
- 18% buy things for their phones.
- Most children who watch videos on their phones watch videos they’ve made themselves
While Alan sees this as good news for the mobile music industry, what we see is a generation that takes their browsing home with them and are accustomed to always-on connectivity, instant access to content and mobile social networking. Getting them to sit quietly in cubicles may prove difficult.
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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We have a similar study out there – we call these workers “Out There”. You can read more about it at this blog entry here.
Our main findings:
People who are “Out There” are more likely to:
* Value fame as an “asset”
* Willing to share certain types of sensitive information on the web
* Believe it is appropriate to criticize their organizations on the web
* Believe that “organizations need to be more transparent to succeed”
* Believe “there’s no harm in openly discussing the work I do inside my organization with others”
In other news;
• 99% of Cats like fish!
• 94% of children like to sing songs. Some also like playing and dancing.
• 97% of phones can be used for calling other people.
• 95% of WebWorkers should do less surfing.
• 0,3% of Kids know that they free to do whatever they want.
• 50% of a 100% is the half of something, but doesn’t really tell you anything.