25 September 2013: #TheOpenAgenda project undertook a global study, in association with Populus, of 16 year olds’ attitudes to the web to understand how its future would be impacted by the habits, desires, interests and concerns of Generation Z. In-depth focus groups were carried out with 16 year olds in five cities: London, UK; Johannesburg, South Africa; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Seoul, South Korea; and New York, USA. Each focus group consisted of eight to ten 16 year olds, with an equal mix of genders. All respondents had a stated interest in the web.
As #TheOpenAgenda launched a campaign to debate how the web can be kept open, we needed to deeply understand the next generation that will help shape it.
Experience of the web: smartphones at the heart
The web is central to the lives of young people all around the world
16 year olds across the UK, South Africa, Brazil, South Korea and the USA are all keen and constant web users. They access the web day and night for a variety of purposes, but principally to communicate through social media and to pursue recreational activities such as streaming films or television, playing games, shopping, or following the news. 16 year olds in South Africa also use the web a great deal for school study, in contrast to the other countries, where the focus is very much on recreation.
The centrality of the web to their lives means that 16 year olds in all these markets consider the web vital, and many talk of being addicted to it. Most stop short, however, of describing web access as a human right, possibly because most use the web for recreational activities only: they recognize that they could do without the web, but believe their lives would be far duller and they would be more isolated in their social circles without it. Indeed, only in South Africa, where the web is a key educational tool, is there a stronger sense that web access is a human right.
Young people primarily use their smartphones to access the web
Across all the countries, 16 year olds access the web primarily through their smartphones. Many also use desktop PCs or laptops at home, but their phone offers the portability and convenience that lets them stay connected constantly. Indeed, speed and convenience are the key considerations for these young people when deciding how to access the web.
Control of the web
Apps and a tailored web experience are the favoured way of consuming content
The desire for convenience means apps are hugely popular in every country, and more so than mobile websites accessed via browsers in most cases. Only in the USA is it thought that browsers are on a par with apps, and this is because mobile websites are seen as offering a better online shopping experience. Young people enjoy having their favourite websites simplified and available at the touch of an icon, and do not mind at all if this narrows their web experience and means their web use is curated and therefore restricted. The only exception is, again, the USA, where some young people are less comfortable with their web experience being monitored and tailored.
Google Chrome’s personalisation features – with most visited pages remembered, for example –are very popular, and in every country young people see increased personalisation and a more tailored web experience as a key element of the web they want to have in 2020.
However, few young people want to create the future of the web themselves
Despite being so keen on apps, young people have little enthusiasm for developing their own. Only a few people in South Korea and the USA have tried, and none have succeeded.
Young people feel they lack the skills and/or ideas, and in any case feel that it is too competitive a market. They fear that if they had an idea it would be superseded by an app or mobile website developed by an expert, and in any case they feel technology companies and enthusiasts are best placed to develop apps or mobile sites.
Young people think that putting any personal data online brings risks and that people must take responsibility for protecting themselves
Though young people are often enthusiastic about allowing companies to use personal data and track web usage to provide a more personalised experience, they also feel that there are risks that come from having their private information online. Young people in South Africa and Brazil are particularly wary of the dangers of having personal information stolen, but nowhere is there any sense that personal data is safe online.
Indeed, young people often assert that the individual must take responsibility for how much of themselves they put online simply because they must be prepared for anything they think is initially private to be made public. They are prepared to accept the quid pro quo of risking personal data in exchange for a better web service, but would like greater assurances from companies that data will be protected.
Young people feel that the online world is just an extension of the real world and should therefore be subject to the same kind of controls
Among Generation Z there was a common desire for more general control of the web. Almost all young people have come across blocks or restrictions in their web browsing, be they on copyrighted media content on YouTube or age restricted content on television streaming websites, but none know exactly how the web is monitored and controlled in this way. Most assume a mixture of government and company controls, but are unaware of who is responsible for what. The majority of young people feel that although the web is a public space these controls are needed because of the criminal activity – such as hacking or terrorism – the web attracts.
The slight exception to this is in South Africa. There, the web is predominantly a knowledge gathering and sharing tool and this informs many of their other views about it. They are wary of denying people access to this knowledge – possibly through fears that this could be manipulated to impinge on civil liberties – and often prefer the idea of an open web as a result.
On the whole, however, young people often seem to think simply that real life laws should apply to the web. So, while they think it is right to uphold basic freedoms, they also believe it is right that copyrighted material can be protected and illegal download sites shut down; they want content such as racist abuse or pedophilia blocked or removed; and they want information of national security protected.
Responsibility for the web
Who young people trust to monitor and control the web varies from country to country
This last area is a potentially contentious issue, with young people in South Africa and Brazil, in particular, wary of trusting their governments to choose what should be open in the interests of the people. This difference from country to country in the amount of trust placed in governments is reflected in views on whom or what should be responsible for monitoring the web. In the US, South Korea and, particularly, the UK, young people generally trust their governments to take ultimate responsibility and decide what should and should not be closed off. In South Africa and to some extent Brazil, however, young people are less likely to trust their governments, and therefore feel they have to trust companies to block criminal content.
Where there is agreement across all the countries regarding government monitoring is in rejecting the idea of a global policing body. Young people feel that the different values and priorities of different nations would make a universal code impossible to draw up and implement.
Young people want a more secure and technologically advanced web in 2020
A safer, better controlled (where necessary), yet still as open as possible web is a key element of the vision young people have for the web in 2020. They want to feel more secure in their web use, particularly since they expect more and more of people’s lives to be conducted online. They expect the web to become ever bigger, more diverse, and more technologically advanced, with ideas for developments ranging from being able to try on clothes virtually to a Matrix-style holographic experience. Such immersion, they feel, will require guarantees of safety.
Young people in the UK, Brazil and South Korea have little appetite for developing the web themselves but there is more interest in South Africa and the USA
While young people want a safer, more controlled and more curated web experience, they rarely want to take a direct role in shaping these themselves. Only in South Africa is there a significant appetite for gaining the technological skills to develop the web themselves; elsewhere young people often like the idea of having technological skills (and sometimes already do, especially in South Korea, where the skills are widely taught), but are happy to leave it to experts or companies to do the development.
They feel it would be too difficult to develop an app, not just in technical terms but also because they fear the competition would mean they made little return on their investment of time and effort.
Instead, young people more often see their role and responsibility as that of consumer-moderators. They believe that by using new web-based products and services young people will naturally sort the good from the bad, and that popularity will determine which elements of the web work and which don’t, and thus how the web will develop.
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