Kid and mom culture is changing right before our eyes because of aggressive adoption of social and mobile technologies. In addition, digitally raised millennials are beginning to have kids and their attitudes and usage of technology is greatly different from older moms. Therefore, how kids communicate, learn and engage with parents and family is in a revolutionary state of change. Below are a few of the key trends we see emerging in kid culture.

Facebook and Peanut Butter and Jelly

We anticipate that Facebook will become as commonplace as peanut butter and jelly amongst younger kids. Kids around eight and nine years old are already getting on Facebook. Because there is limited quantitative digital media research around younger kids, we look to mom based discussion groups on Café Mom, as well as watching kids within our own families, to provide insight into what is going on.

Younger kids desire to be on Facebook. Mom is the gatekeeper, and we see two philosophical camps on Facebook usage (as well as digital usage in general): Permissive and Positive and Heavily Guarded.

Permissive and Positive:

See it as a way for their child to have relationships with family that is important to mom (especially cousins that live out of state). Keeping in touch with relatives builds the relationship mom wants them to have with their family:

Café Mom Discussion:

“My aunt allows her daughter, who is 8, to have a facebook page, but everything is restricted so no one can see it unless they are her friends, and my aunt monitors who she is friends with, which is mostly all family who lives out of state”

Heavily Guarded:

These parents see social media as very threatening to their children. They are also much more restrictive than other types of parents in terms of allowing broader digital usage beyond Facebook.

Café Mom Discussion:

“My 8 almost 9 yo wanted a Facebook account and his dad and I said no way in hell.”

Touchscreen Love

Touchscreens are having a profound effect on toddlers as well as school age kids. If you’ve ever witnessed these tikes with the iPhone and the apps, you will see that they are mesmerized by it. They have utter awe and fascination for the behavior/attributes of the touchscreen and how the games and activities work within this creative structure. In addition, they can figure it out by watching their parent or on their own-and this is amazing the grown ups. It’s making grown ups realize that they have been underestimating how a child can think and learn at such a young age.

The realization of childrens’ instant captivation while using this technology is going to lead to profound effects for children over the next several years because it has great benefit to moms, educators and marketers. Touchscreen Love will:

-Lead marketers and device manufacturers to invent new products for kids.

-Lead moms to buy touchscreen devices for their children because it keeps their kids occupied while educating them at the same time.

-Lead educators to use devices that are similar to iPhone/iPod Touch because they see how captivation and fun leads to a child’s increased learning of concepts.

The last point leads us to the next trend: Smarter than you think I am

Smarter Than You Think I Am

Contemporary educators, like Sugata Mitra, that are experienced in technology are identifying just how brilliant kids are.

Via studies in third world countries, where there is a lack of teachers, educators and technologists are uncovering that kids can educate themselves with the mix of engaging technology and curiosity. Some interesting content around this exists in Fast Company’s article The Real Smart Phone Revolution: How Tech is Making Kids Smarter Everywhere. Sugata Mitra’s presentation at TED is a very compelling piece that clearly showcases the Smarter Than You Think I Am trend.

Digital systems (whether they be the menu of an iPhone, a game application, or an Internet browser) allows for trial and error engagement without the threat of breaking the system. (Mom runs the risk of losing her contact data and the child dropping the device—but there is not danger of breaking the technology) and this means kids can try and try again to figure it out: what does it do, what can it do-essentially uncovering things they are interested in.

These are just a few trends that we’ve identified. For more trends, please email us.

Digital has become a primary way that we engage with our world. Therefore creating user experience that is intuitive, seamless, and delightful are now very important factors that contribute to creating positive brand perceptions on a mass scale.

There is a plethora of ways that people find, are exposed to, and experience a brand in the digital space. Here’s one straightforward example of a poorly designed user experience flow across touch points: A person liked what they saw on a television ad. Their mobile device was in hand. They searched for the brand/product, but they couldn’t find it or couldn’t find it easily. When they found the site it wasn’t optimized for mobile. Instead they received the dreaded Flash requirement warning, an extremely slow site, a poor navigation experience, or all of these.

At this point, the user is either mildly to greatly annoyed by the fact that they couldn’t explore what they wanted to explore in the way they wanted. A range of potential thoughts about the brand are entering the user’s mind: the brand is difficult, the brand isn’t smart, isn’t fun, doesn’t get me, etc. These perceptions go against personality defining statements in most brand briefs. Therefore, this scenario is not only a disappointing experience for the user but a disappointment in the brand.

Best in class user experience is not being championed enough by marketing people. Marketers spend millions of dollars on TV campaigns to create positive brand perceptions, but in a series of digital moments, they greatly diminish the positive equity they created in a person’s mind about the brand.

There are a couple of reasons for the lack of user experience championing. First, it’s not part of their habit of thinking. Marketers are still bound by the thought patterns of historic marketing/advertising practices. Second, the communication silos (politics) of big companies prevent seamless, brilliant consumer ecosystem flow. The result of this is a competitive gap and an opportunity. The company that can overcome, or is designed to close this gap, will be greatly rewarded.