Blogamericas.com » Youth

Alberto Lung — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:14:48 +0000

Vídeo realizado para iniciar uma conversa com a comunidade do projeto Dayloggers.

Social Networking – Brazil in Global Context

Tim Lucas — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 22:56:00 +0000

A new study released by Nielsen reports the shift in the online social behavior. Nielsen’s study results presented here followed the online activity in the USA, Brazil, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Australia. Note that the ‘Member Community’ category includes both social networking and blogging websites.

1. Social network and blogging sites are now the 4th most popular activity on the Internet

Social network and blogging sites are now the 4th most popular
activity on the Internet (overcoming personal email) with 67% global reach as to December 2008. That is 5% more of what they attracted a year ago.

The strongest growth comes from Germany (much due to Facebook launching a German language interface in March 2008) now reaching 51% of Germans online compared to 39% a year ago (12% increase). Large growth has also occurred in the UK, Spain, Italy and Switzerland (about 10% growth in each country).
The US growth at this time was minor (2.6% growth) suggesting a saturation of the online social activity of the US population.

2. Due to Facebook’s success – time spent on ‘member community’ sites grow three times the rate of overall Internet growth

The overall time spent online globally increased by 18% between December 2007 and December 2008. In the same period, however, the amount of time spent on ‘Member Community’ sites rose by 63% to 45 billion minutes; and on Facebook by a massive 566% – from 3.1 billion minutes to 20.5 billion. Facebook’s time is so high due to having the highest average time per person (three hours 10 minutes).

In most of the countries monitored the share of time accounted for by ‘Member Communities’ has more than doubled. In Switzerland, share of time has tripled from 3% to 9.3%.
A year ago ‘Member Communities’ accounted for one in every 15 online minutes globally – now it accounts for one in every 11. In Brazil alone, ‘Member Communities’ accounts for almost one in every 4 minutes. In the UK they now account for one in every 6 minutes (up from every 13 minutes a year ago) and in Italy one in every 7 (up from one in 14 a year ago).

3. Facebook has driven older people to be socially involved online:

While social networks started amongst the younger audience, today’s audiences are becoming broader and older. This shift has primarily been driven by Facebook, successfully opened opportunities of social networking to a much wider audience.

Beware the Brazilian Teenager!

Tim Lucas — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:31:47 +0000

This weeks Veja magazine has devoted a large segment to a report on today’s Brazilian youth. Whilst the report contains some interesting background and insight on young people – much of which relates to trends observable in young middle class people (not just limited to teenagers) across the globe the general tone of the piece is in some ways as confusing as the young people it identifies. Confusing in that whilst the net is seen as creating a generation more informed than their parents, less tribal and less prejudiced, it is simultaneously seen as central to a number of ‘problems’ affecting young Brazilians.

The report is somewhat akin to a soft ‘moral panic’ stating that young people who are kings of the digital age are costly to keep, pragmatic, lacking idealism and generally lost or confused in a world of endless choice, much of which is bought on by their being endlessly online. The internet and social media is in part blamed for young people’s lack of reflexivity and a ‘look at me’ culture, meanwhile the growth of social contacts via Orkut has fuelled increased party attendance and this is blmed for increased drinking and drug taking amongst Brazilians.The article however also seeks to criticise teens for having lost the sense of revolution that their parents exhibited, worrying only about getting into stable employment and receiving a good salary.
The shift in power relations due to adoption of technologies is also seen as a factor behind how young people now increasingly control household spending behaviour and the fact that young people are now 5 times more expensive than 30 years ago.
The article which starts by drawing comparison to Holden Caulfield’s crisis of 2 generations ago ends with a list of recommendations to parents on how to raise their children with reference to such issues as – how to get them to answer the phone, or stop exposing too much of their lives online!

If you would like to know more about our own extensive and less sensationalist research report into Young Lives across South America – please click here

Influencer Culture – wikipedia and literature

Tim Lucas — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:55:51 +0000

as promised…some thoughts and clips from Lima to come over the next few days. Here is a starter from the interviews with teenagers in Lima. We asked if the internet influenced their consumer behaviour and they discussed how their online and offline purchasing of books (offline) was particularly influenced by their online behaviour – in particular Wikipedia as a source of ideas for books to purchase…never done it myself but will give it a go…

Outdoor Advertising – Water Consumption in Brazil

Tim Lucas — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:59:54 +0000

Is this really the most effective means to promote responsible use of water?

Use water responsibly!

I may be being a touch sensitive given that as a result of severe floods here in the south of Brazil, i Iike many people was without water for some time – nothing in comparison to the thousands of people who have lost lives, property, loved ones etc – HOWEVER… I’m not sure that the timing of my discovering this outdoor advertisement on a bus shelter from a water company promoting more conscientious consumption of water is the only thing that left me dumbfounded. In case you can’t see from the photo the shell of the advert contains water itself in the bottom half. Not only the water but the electricity required to keep the water circulating within the plastic case of the poster seem to go against the theme of the message. It did get my attention though!

NBC 08 Senac, Sao Paulo

Tim Lucas — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 16:03:15 +0000

Some shots from the NBC 08 event at SENAC, Sao Paulo
Huge thanks to Victor at comlimão

discussion group on stage -

Tuesday – presentation 1

presentation 2

presentation 3

NBC 08 (SENAC) discussion with teenagers

Tim Lucas — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:25:36 +0000

We’ll try to get some clips from the event onto the site in the next few days – a small first clip here…

Please get in touch or leave any comments on the event

Social Networking – Brazil in the Global Perspective

Tim Lucas — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:21:14 +0000

Well worth a look and some basic detail on Brazil to follow

can be downloaded from here

The On the Go Generation

Tim Lucas — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:26:09 +0000

Grace and Clare in London discussing their use of laptops and phones. The convenience of their Blackberries are discussed and how the permanent connection to being online influences their daily routines.

Grace and Clare…connected

Tim Lucas — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:18:28 +0000

Whilst in London Ive been able to meet up with two (young) old friends. Always a pleasure and enlightening to spend time with them. I wanted just to post a few quick clips from an interesting discussion about their media usage and online lives. Here they discuss some of the pros and cons of being constantly connected and its implications on their social relations. The girls have both recently moved into the world of Blackberry, as have a number of their peer group.