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Monica
01-31-2005, 04:09 PM
http://money.cnn.com/2005/01/31/technology/personaltech/Teenstudy/index.htm?cnn=yes

Surprise: Parents more Web-savvy
New Nielsen study says teens bored quickly, frustrated easily online.
January 31, 2005: 11:31 AM EST

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The cliché of Web-savvy teenagers clicking circles around their parents is simply not a reality, according to a new study by the Nielsen Norman Group that challenges Internet stereotypes of teen "technowizards."

The study showed that teens quickly succumb to Internet ennui and, unlike their parents, give up quickly on sites that are difficult to navigate.

"When using Web sites, teenagers have a lower success rate than adults and they're also easily bored," the study concluded. "To work for teens, Web sites must be simple, but not childish, and supply plenty of interactive features."


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The Nielsen study asked 38 teens between the ages of 13 and 17 to perform tasks on 23 specific Web sites. The study measured a success rate of 55 percent for teenage users, lower than the 66 percent rate found for adult users.

The success indicates a proportion of time the users were able to complete a task on a target site. Teens were found to have poor reading skills, unsophisticated research strategies and a "dramatically" lower patience level, according to the study.

"Boredom is the kiss of death in terms of keeping teens on your site," according to the study. "That's the one stereotype our study confirmed: Teens have a short attention span and want to be stimulated. That's also why they leave sites that are difficult to figure out."

Most of the study sessions were conducted in the U.S., focusing on disadvantaged urban areas and affluent suburbs in California and a rural area of Colorado. A minority of the studies were conducted in Australia, where Web-using teens revealed that they are "nuts about sports."

Nielsen representatives could not be reached for comment.

Wow, that's rather surprising...what sites are too complicated? I dunno if it's just me but this article is rather strange...O_o

ZTC
01-31-2005, 04:25 PM
in the least it's odd, the only time I get bored/fustrated on the net is when I've been hacking, you either get in or you're locked out, pretty simple

Lutraphobiac
01-31-2005, 04:28 PM
It seems to me that it is a poorly constructed study. Although I cannot provide specific criticisms since the descriptions of the study are so vague. I don't think that teens getting bored at web pages is the measure of technological aptitude. It basically just means that we get bored easily. I don't think that demanding that a web site be navigatable is to much to ask.

I really want to know what the group they did the study on was drawn from. It sounds like the group of kids are rather uneducated and easily distracted.

Archibaldo
01-31-2005, 06:06 PM
I highly doubt anything in that article are true. The teens they used in that experiment must have been incredibly stupid, or the sites they were supposed to research must have been about something incredibly boring.

Goat
01-31-2005, 06:42 PM
I never have any trouble on any site findign what I need, but I do get really bored on the internet. Just sitting in one spot for more than half an hour drives me bonkers. Id rather be out runnin with my buddies, or at teh gym or something. I cant stand to watch much TV or goto movies either

Raichu86
02-02-2005, 02:59 PM
I could believe that, actually. My mother tends to not get sick of going in circles trying to find stuff on a poorly constructed site. On the other hand, I'll give up and just use Google to find the information on the site or some other site. That means I'm more efficient! :p