Giles Broadbent examines an alien lifeform
Teenager Matthew Robson, a Morgan Stanley intern who put together a paper about his friends' media habits, has the world agog. His findings include the news that teenagers don't use Twitter and that they find adverts "annoying and pointless".
The report has become the talk of a gathering of new media giants in Idaho where executives, apparently, have been stunned.
The Wharf also found a teenager and he also spoke in a way that was both clear and non-intimidating. A list of his exclusive insights into teenage attitudes that will surely shock society includes:
Other conclusions include:
- Teenagers prefer computer games to analyzing debt ratios of major financial institutions.
- They would happily devour burger and chips but would turn up their noses at a plate of wood shavings.
- They are more likely to watch TV programmes aimed at teenagers rather than documentaries on paper towels broadcast in Swedish.
- Fun is more crucial to their sense of happiness than Berkshire or Sellotape.
- Teenagers are more likely to get their news and entertainment from a PC in the bedroom than from snow.
- When they grow up, teenagers would rather be models, actors, writers and scientists but would snub a career as a trapped miner in China's Guizhou province, licking the wall to stay alive.
Scientists and anthropologists are poring over the findings in order to understand this new breed.
One futurologist, who did not want to be named because his conclusions were "early and untested", said he believed that teenagers preferred things that were free to things that cost money because "teenagers don't have much money" and their aversion to advertising is based on the fact that adverts "interrupt the music and teenagers, uniquely, prefer for this not to happen".
Generally, boring things were viewed by teenagers as "tedious" whereas interesting things were seen as "of interest".
He feared that without genetic adaptations to handle mortgage repayments and lace-up shoes, it was possible that this new breed would struggle in the modern world.
He said "only time would tell" if teenagers were capable of evolving into adults.
– First published in The Wharf on July 16
