Just Charlotte

One of the major news stories dominating the headlines at the moment is the stir being caused by a report written by a teenage intern at Morgan Stanley. If you believe what you read in the news, Matthew Robson, who is just 15 years old, has provided a groundbreaking glimpse into the mindset of a typical teenager and this seemingly representative snapshot of the way in which today’s teenagers view various forms of media has caused the powers that be to sleep a little less soundly at night.

However, I can’t help but approach this story with a feeling of overwhelming anticlimax. When this story first broke, I was so hooked by the scaremongering being pervaded by various papers that I decided to take a look at Robson’s full report myself. I can tell you, before you bother going to the same lengths as I did, that the report contains no real surprises.

Now, I don’t want to pick apart a report written by a rather articulate 15 year old but I do intend to highlight what a fuss has been made over what ultimately amounts to…well, not quite nothing, but not a lot either.

So, Robson informs us that “most teenagers nowadays are not regular listeners to radio. They may occasionally tune in, but they do not try to listen to a program specifically”. Now, please correct me if I’m wrong but I thought the only people who aimed to listen to a radio program specifically were members of an older generation who can’t bear to miss out on the latest happenings in The Archers.

When I was the age Robson is now (bear in mind that’s a whopping seven years ago), I would perhaps make an effort to catch the Top 40 chart show on a Sunday evening but the amount of effort put into seeing this task through was tantamount to the level of effort I put into my Art homework – i.e. not very much, particularly when your Dad doesn’t mind doing it for you.

As for Twitter, well, it hardly came as news to me that many teenagers don’t give two hoots about Philip Schofield’s choice of wine to accompany his Sunday roast. Don’t get me wrong, from a marketing point of view the potential of Twitter to spread brand awareness shouldn’t be underestimated, despite the inevitable moans from some that it’s not worth pursuing because it can’t be monitored from a ROI standpoint. However, for teenagers, it’s entirely understandable that Facebook is the social media outlet of choice. After all, posting a photo of your mate in a compromising position on a night out doesn’t always have the same impact when you do it on Twitpic.

If there’s one thing that genuinely shocked me about Robson’s musings, it’s his comments about television habits among teenagers. Robson states that: “most teenagers watch television, but usually there are points in the year where they watch more than average. This is due to programs coming on in seasons, so they will watch a particular show at a certain time for a number of weeks (as long as it lasts) but then they may watch no television for weeks after the program has ended”.

Erm…I’m sorry…NO TELEVISION FOR WEEKS?!?! I simply can’t wrap my head around this seemingly blase statement. Yeah, fair enough, there are certain popular shows which run for, say, 20 episodes and then come to an end but at this point it’s just the case of finding something else mildly amusing to pass the time or at least provide some level of generic background noise! I can only conclude here that Matthew Robson has never heard of Judge Judy, Relocation Relocation, or (my personal favourite) The Dog Whisperer.

It seems to me that the media may have been struggling for real, worthy news stories in this new post-Michael Jackson’s death, memorial service, official start of 50-year mourning period world. Let’s just hope that LaToya Jackson’s assertion that MJ was in fact murdered gathers some pace over the coming days or we could be bombarded with more of these stories out of nothing.

Oh and one more thing, since when did 15 year olds on internships stop making the tea and start writing reports?