The video was produced by Paul McGregor of threebillion.com and aired on MTV Asia. The domain name “threebillion.com” refers to the number of people under the age of 25 (the site’s tagline is “Now that’s a lot of consumers”). It features 36 facts about youth, and a good number of them cover their use of technology. If you’re trying to chart your future tech course, it never hurts to see what the kids are up to.
Here’s the video. It’s not too long, and it’s pretty fascinating stuff:
For the benefit of the search engines and those who can’t watch the video, here are the facts that appear in the video:
There are 3 billion people under 25 on this planet
61% of them live in Asia
67% of young Asians have downloaded music in the last month
Only 27% paid for it
Hong Kong youth spend the most time online per day (4.7 hours)
Indonesian youth spend the least (0.9 hours)
Young Filipinos watch the most TV per day (6.2 hours)
Young Chinese watch the least (3.2 hours)
There are 37.5 million gamers in China
90% play online games
Weekly, Korean teenagers will spend
14 hours on the computer…
.12.8 hours watching TV
0.7 hours reading newspapers
Taiwan has the highest teenage birthrate in Asia
South Korea has the lowest
45% of young Japanese women said they were in love
Only 30% of young Japanese men said the same
82% of Japanese teen males said they used contraception the first time they had sex
Only 12% of Japanese 20-year-olds use the home PC to access the internet — the same level as 50-year-olds — they’re using their mobile phones instead
26% of all youth deaths in China are from suicide
In India, 50% of girls will be married before they are 18
In Nepal, the rate is 60%
85% of Korean teenagers own a cell phone
They send an average of 60 messages per day
46% of students send messages in class
“Our children are seriously addicted to cell phones” — Parent’s Union Spokesperson
Chinese people spend 10x more money on the internet than people in the west
It represents 10% of their monthly income
Who prefers a laid-back hassle-free lifestyle?
14% of Chinese teens
22% of South Korean teens
43% of Japanese teens
99% of Saudi teens use Bluetooth
99% said that the device had broken social taboos
85% said it was safe for communication with the opposite sex
69% of messages exchanged by Saudi teens were pornographic
Man what is wrong with those Japanese twentysomethings… who wants to stare at the net on itty bitty phone screens?
I have a Blackberry with some pretty awesome server-admin tools on it, but it’s best in situations where the laptop (or wifi service) isn’t readily available. I wouldn’t want to be doing ALL of my work from the tiny BB screen.
It’s probably a byproduct of what appears to be a very slow adoption of desktop computers.
When I was last in Japan (1998), I visited a number of offices where friends worked and was amazed at how few computers there were. A number of offices had one computer; many didn’t have any at all. Paperwork was still being done on paper. My trusty 233 MHz Toshiba Satellite laptop (with 96MB RAM, pretty good at the time) was probably the best computer hardware that had passed through the doors of some of those places.
On the other hand, their phones made my then-decent Sony phone seem laughable. Tiny, with far better battery life than mine, and used for messaging and games, the subway cars and trains were packed with people noodling with their phones on their long commutes.
Global Nerdy is Joey deVilla's
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Joey is the Nerd Wrangler at b5media,
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(The standard disclaimer applies: the opinions expressed in this blog are solely
those of Joey deVilla and do not necessarily reflect those of b5media.)
He's an active participant in TorCamp, a
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Man what is wrong with those Japanese twentysomethings… who wants to stare at the net on itty bitty phone screens?
I have a Blackberry with some pretty awesome server-admin tools on it, but it’s best in situations where the laptop (or wifi service) isn’t readily available. I wouldn’t want to be doing ALL of my work from the tiny BB screen.
@Chris Taylor:
It’s probably a byproduct of what appears to be a very slow adoption of desktop computers.
When I was last in Japan (1998), I visited a number of offices where friends worked and was amazed at how few computers there were. A number of offices had one computer; many didn’t have any at all. Paperwork was still being done on paper. My trusty 233 MHz Toshiba Satellite laptop (with 96MB RAM, pretty good at the time) was probably the best computer hardware that had passed through the doors of some of those places.
On the other hand, their phones made my then-decent Sony phone seem laughable. Tiny, with far better battery life than mine, and used for messaging and games, the subway cars and trains were packed with people noodling with their phones on their long commutes.
I imagine that the computer gap has closed somewhat, but Japanese mobile phone culture is a pretty strong thing.