(* Source: Lee Ryan *)

Lee says...

I noticed recently that there was new material uploaded recently about youth, including youth in Asia. I am not sure about the term millenials (which may or may not have two n’s). Some things don’t change - youth consistently have the same core requirement of this lifestage - to both fit in and stand out, and as a client commented to me after a global presentation - “Youth are always bored.” Last year i was in a home in Ho Chí Minh observing a teenager take us through her media collection, and there were connections for me with Catcher in the Rye (it’s amazing what a yahoo 360 site can trigger). Yet observing youth in the same city in internet cafes playing some extraordinary blend of Karaoke and dancing games reminded me of nothing else in the world. Expressions of different needs are constantly changing, and it’s always intriguing to see what are the emergent trends and regional & country differences.

So again - i have compiled a collection of links and sites on the basis of where i would send some young qualitative researchers. It is work by people in their industry, and it ranges from global to Asia. Some of it is a bit older because i believe the site has some good thinking. I have tried to choose a range of different examples. Please comment if you can add to the list (click on post title and scroll to the end of post to add comment). If you haven’t already seen it scroll down to see the deck on slideshare about Korean B Boys and audience 2.0 (thanks Guy for this link).

Digital Youth Research is an academic research project carried out by researchers at the University of Southern California and University of California exploring how kids use digital media in their everyday lives. The research team interviewed over 800 youth and young adults and conducted over 5000 hours of online observations as part of the most extensive U.S. study of youth digital media use to date. They found that social network sites, online games, video-sharing sites, and gadgets such as iPods and mobile phones are now fixtures of youth culture. The research finds today’s youth may be coming of age and struggling for autonomy and identity amid new worlds for communication, friendship, play, and self-expression. Key highlights are available on the site.

Danah Boyd has also investigated how American teenagers socialize in networked publics like MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, Xanga and YouTube which has caused some discussion on the net.

Flamingo is an international qualitative research consultancy and youth is one of their specialisms. They have some excellent pieces in their Thinking section.

Barking Robot by Derek Baird, was voted by mobileYouth as a top marketing youth blogger as was Paul MacGregorand Lisa Li Yi.

Universal Mccann research into social media, uploaded to slideshare regularly provides rich sources of data on young people

Insites Consulting has some interesting updates around their work with youth including a piece about authenticity, and their explorations with netnography. Useful because of their attention to methodology

Being Young Ian Stewart has released some excellent pieces from his time at MTV, on widgets, a fundamental piece about trends in Asia from a couple of years ago, and of course on music matters..