I learned some interesting things:

1. All but one teen “has a MySpace”, and the one that doesn’t sounded like she was actively rejecting it. Only two are on Facebook, and one of those has a sister in college with whom she communicates on Facebook.
2. They don’t email each other. They use MySpace or text messages or they talk face to face at school. Email is for website registrations and contacting teachers.
3. They all hate ads on websites. They especially hate pop-ups, ads with audio files, video ads, and ads that tell you you’ve won something when you haven’t. Even so, one of the kids said that when he sees ads that have little games in them, he can’t help but play them. “Even when I know it’s going to take me to a page I don’t want to go to, I still have to shoot the monkey.”
4. While only two of the kids identified as “gamers,” all the kids said they play games, on their phones and online. They like Tetris and PacMan, and little Flash games.
5. The teens time shift most of their TV watching using the web. They all watch YouTube. Most interesting to me, they make no distinction between watching a full episode of a show on the CBS website, watching it on the licensed third-party site Veoh, and watching it on any one of the many sites that stream pirated shows from China. Wherever they can find the episode they want to watch, that’s where they’ll watch it.
6. Some of the teens seemed pretty savvy about being advertised to, and they understand that the ads are what pay the bills. One commented that he likes to watch sports clips on NBA.com, but hates that before every single clip, there’s the same commercial for Miller Lite. It’s annoying, and he’s not interested in beer. “The advertising should go with what’s on the site,” he said. “If it were for basketball shoes, that would be okay.”

It was a great panel. These kids will be going to college in a few years, and they are going to bring their expectations for technology and communication with them to campus. They may not want their professors or librarians on Facebook, or sending them text messages, but they may respond a whole lot better to the things we try to teach them if we put it in the shape of a little Flash game.