Manila Times
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Teen spending on IT up—survey
By Rafael S. Santos
CONSUMER spending among teens has shifted to technology-driven products and less toward traditional consumer goods, a market research company said.
Spending for cold beverages like beer and soft drinks, books, movies and clothes has declined the last five years, according to a McCann Erickson Intergeneration survey done in 2005.
The study found that in their place, spending for prepaid cell-phone cards and web surfing has spiked since the last study the company did in 2000. People under 21 currently comprise 51 percent of the country’s population, with its median age at 22.5 years old.
The study covered 2000 respondents across all economic classes and geographical regions, with ages ranging from 21 to 60.
McCann Erickson said the growing dependence of today’s youth on technology-driven inputs poses a distinct challenge to companies that want to corner a piece of the burgeoning teen market, as wants and needs have also increased over the past five years.
Teens also watch less television and instead focus more on online chatting and texting. They also read less books, magazines and newspapers compared to 2000 numbers, the study said.
The proliferation of Internet cafés has also democratized Internet access as respondents from the C and D demographic reflected the highest jump in terms of Internet gaming and surfing usage across all clusters.
The study also cited the youth’s shift to careers that offer instant gratification instead of traditional career-building jobs, a theory which explains the rise in contact-center employment which offers high salaries but limited career opportunities.
The survey also concluded that today’s youth tend to focus more hours on studying compared to five years ago, but added that this trend was not meant for scholastic or academic achievement but geared toward accelerating their ascent to high-paying jobs abroad like nursing.
People wanting to become nurses topped all classes: A-18 percent, C- 28 percent and D-25 percent, McCann Erickson said.
McCann said the exodus of Filipinos overseas has inspired today’s younger generation to seek employment abroad, and often times, these individuals go as singles, reversing earlier trends of married overseas Filipino workers. Today’s youth also seek jobs abroad to support their parents and next of kin, and to uplift their social status.
The side effect of more information disseminated through technology is that teens are more stressed out than they were a decade ago, McCann said.