Awareness
There's an interesting post on collapsing geography about tech awareness. In an informal count of hands, the awareness of a particular technology - heard of or used -among college students in one particular class went from the predictable 100% for cell phones to (surprisingly) 0% for RSS and Spore. One person had heard of Twitter.

I can't quite believe only 10% have heard of WoW - I think it might say more about what college students think they need to disown. However I live online, so my perspective is skewed in that direction.*

I'm sure the marketeers are poised and engaged in some Pavlovian drool behavior at the idea of - somehow, someway - putting a bit of choice new-style advertising on cell phones. Something amusing and watchable as content in itself, while acting to extend marketshare. Free phone or phone functions, or free access to content for allowing advertising - well, it's not something I know anything about or anything I like, but it seems as though it could happen (might've already for all I know).

I think I might be part of the last generation that proceeded through childhood with almost no advertising geared toward us. It would be nice to think the current children will grow up brushing advertising away with a wave of their hands like someone shooing flies, but what I've seen is often A) buying into the advertisers' line (say, anorexia) or b) cynicism that carries over to all facets of life ("everyone cheats," "politicians are all the same - corrupt - so why bother voting?").

0% for Spore - that surprises me. One thing the list probably marks well for that group of people is how important the particular tech utilities are to them. I think if you don't need/use/care about Twitter you don't bother to remember it and may delete its entry from your database. There's a multiplicity of applications social and otherwise and a swarming aspect to their use at that age especially, and no matter how many times you see/hear/watch South Park episodes about one, if your friends don't frequent it then it's deleted or stored in a little-used module. Perhaps it's a modern survival memory tactic. I'm just making this up, as anyone who has read this far can tell :-D

*But I bet they've all seen that South Park WoW episode - even I've seen it and I haven't had television for decades.

Labels: Disjointed Thoughtlets