by Shelly Blake-Plock
Wandering around the cafe today during a lunch duty, I took mental notes on the tech usage by high school students.
Counted a half-dozen kids on Skype; one of them was sharing photos from a school event. A handful of kids were listening to stuff on iPods; at least two students were downloading songs from sites I'm not familiar with -- one looked to be some sort of message board (isn't that so 90's?).
One student was sitting at a table of gamers making a proxy to hack passed the school's firewall. About a half-dozen students were playing MMOGs. One student was playing a beta version of a first-person game called MineWars, or something of that sort.
One student was using Google Translate to read a Chinese newspaper. One student was watching a YouTube video of a ballet recital, another was showing her friends videos of cheerleading practice. One student was busy on his iPhone and a few others were texting.
Two students were on Facebook (despite the fact it's, um, "blocked"). And three students were on Twitter -- which is not blocked.
No one seemed to be doing any software-based stuff; everything was online. Oh, and from what I could tell, about 90% of the kids were using Google Chrome.
Talked to kids about IM'ing and everyone said they used Skype the most (as in, it was always on). Facebook came in second. No one -- as in not a single kid -- said they use Google Chat or Google Talk. They said passwords were a pain in the butt. And they don't like email.
By and large, according to the students, Twitter was something you might use for class. Very "business-like". Though one student loves it to follow ESPN writers. In fact, ESPN was mentioned several times.
One student was obsessed with Google News -- it's where he gets his news. Another uses four different gaming interfaces "daily". Just about every student said Facebook was the place to be outside of school (as though it were a "place" -- like the mall) -- and several mentioned that the thing they liked about FB was the "privacy". Huh.
I think it's a good idea now and then to pay attention to what the kids are doing -- to see what's trending and to see what's not. More than anything, I'm interested in seeing what develops as the "normal", the "standard", and the "go-to". Because the tools we use tell volumes about our needs and desires.