Digital Immigrant, Victoria Curro is the Managing Director, and Digital Native, Amy Toma, is an Associate Visual Designer at R/GA Australia and they discuss the insights and consequences of their Gen One research.
One of Australia’s largest and growing demographic is one that has never known the world without the internet. And yet, most of the way we interface with the internet has been designed for digital adopters rather than for the digital natives of Gen One. This includes digital tools like apps, websites, and government services.
The Gen One research from agency R/GA, the global design and marketing innovation consultancy, shows that this approach to UX design reduces the reach and engagement with the first generation of the internet – Gen One.
You can download the Gen One research at https://genonereport.com.au/
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It’s got all the stats, it’s got all of the details around the methodology. It’s a substantial report and we are going to be sort of dropping chapters every week.
Transcription:
Darren:
Hi, I’m Darren Woolley, founder and CEO of TrinityP3 Marketing Management consultancy and welcome to Managing Marketing. A weekly podcast where we discuss the issues and opportunities facing marketing, media, and advertising with industry thought leaders and practitioners.
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One of Australia’s largest and growing demographics is the one that has never known the world without the internet, and yet most of the way we interface with the internet has been designed for digital adopters like myself, rather than for the digital natives. This includes digital tools like apps, websites, and government services.
New research from agency R/GA, the creative innovation studio, shows that this approach to UX design reduces the reach and engagement with digital natives in a group they call Gen One, the first generation of the internet.
To discuss the findings of their Gen One report, please welcome to the Managing Marketing Podcast, digital adopter Victoria Curro, Managing Director R/G Australia. Welcome, Victoria.
Victoria:
Hey, Darren. Nice to be here.
Darren:
It’s good to be able to have a conversation with another adopter because we also have digital native here, Amy Toma, Associate Visual Designer at R/GA Australia. Welcome, Amy.
Amy:
Thank you. Happy to be here as well.
Darren:
And look, Amy I’m interested about the perspective of not just you, but of the Gen One generation, because this was not something I’d really considered this research until it was brought to my attention, and suddenly it just made sense.
Did you find the research, brought up anything that you personally had not considered or was it pretty much from your life experience?
Amy:
In my opinion, I think the research basically confirmed things that I was already feeling towards digital products and technology, and I think things that are being spoken about and discussed amongst my generation. So, I don’t think there was anything that came out of left field, I think most of it felt quite applicable to my life and my experience.
Darren:
Because Victoria, what was the sort of motivation behind this? Because as I said, it didn’t seem like something that I’d really considered as a problem until I started to consider the research.
Victoria:
Well, the reason we did it is we work with a lot of brands that want to appeal to digital natives. We work with brands like Nike. We work with government services that are trying to create a relationship with this generation.
And we had a hunch that they were being underserved, that we weren’t really setting up digital experiences and products in the best way to fit into their world and to get the right engagement from them, from both brands and government.
And government want to do this in the best way possible because there’s a real benefit for the individual and for the service. So, we wanted to make sure that we were applying the best thinking to the products and services and experiences that we were building for this generation.
So, we wanted to find out a whole lot more about them, their likes, their dislikes, and how we can make sure that we are designing for their world today, but taking on those learnings to make sure that we are creating things that are also future proof.
Darren:
Because from my perspective, I feel like internet, UX designers have trained me on how they want me to interface with the various, whether it’s websites or apps. There are certain behaviors that have been reproduced over and over and over again as a way of getting me to work this as efficiently as possible.
Why is it important to now rethink that from a user’s perspective, when you’ve spent potentially 20 years telling everyone or training everyone like monkeys, how to use their interface?
Victoria:
Well, I think what we did originally, and I am someone who is a digital adopter. I started running digital agencies about 15 years ago. Where we started was digitizing analog things, digitizing paper-based forms. And we kind of took things that were analog, took things that were physical and bought them into the digital world.
What we are doing with this report and these findings is rethinking that whole process, is saying, “Well, what can we learn from people that have never known that old world?” They expect things to be intuitive. They expect things to be fast, engaging, fun, to give them a bit of a pleasure hit. What can we learn from that and take that to that old world?
Because if we keep on kind of going from the past to the future, it’s going to take us a long time to get there. So, our thinking is really flipping on its head, the general wisdom that you learn from the old and you teach the young. We’re saying that what we can do is learn from the young and teach the old.
A quick anecdote on that is when my parents retired, they’d never used email or computers their whole careers. And my dad worked for National Australia Bank, so God knows how we got through it.
They retired, but they wanted to stay connected to their community, to us. And so, they bought their first ever computer. They went to the computer shop and the guy said, “You should buy a Mac. Don’t buy a PC. That’s old technology. Buy a Mac. A Mac will learn how you like to use it. PC, you will have to learn how it likes to use it.”
So, that’s a great analogy of actually how you can use new technology, because it’s actually more intuitive.
We have two and three-year-olds using iPhones to play games they can’t even read or write. So, there’s so much technology and ways of using digital that we can learn from this generation to actually make it better for older generations that may not have grown up with it at all.
Darren:
Because Amy, there’s examples out there that have got design that are actually engaging people and making them feel things. And so, it must be interesting for Gen One generally to be having to move from this sort of old world.
And I love the example of so much of it is, here’s a form to fill in which is the most — it was boring on paper, it’s even more boring online. What are some of the things that come up around the sort of old way of UX?
Amy:
Well, the first thing that I think of is echoing what Vic said about taking analog forms of media and just converting it digitally. And I think that’s one of my pet peeves when it comes to digital products, because the whole point of being a digital product is you want it to be interactive. You want it to be engaging.
There’s things that you can do with digital products that you don’t do with a book or a magazine or a newspaper or a form, that’s on paper. So, I just think that if digital products are being treated like a layout exercise, if they’re being treated like taking something that’s in a format that makes sense initially and converting it to a format that doesn’t make sense for it, then it’s almost a lazy way of designing.
I think that it’s about finding the magic in digital products and finding the things that make it unique and elevating those things and being more innovative with that rather than trying to recreate something and reinvent the wheel, basically.
Darren:
It’s interesting because so much of what takes people’s time is things that they love or enjoy, it’s rewarding for them and yet so much interface is not actually enjoyable. It’s a task rather than … and thinking about gamification, and the marketing world is still coming to terms with the fact that gaming is such a big opportunity because the players are absolutely engaged in that environment, aren’t they?
Victoria:
Absolutely. I think we are sort of missing a trick. I think some people, marketers, can be guilty of thinking of gamers as a subculture, which is totally not true. We are all gamers and we’re all just gaming in different ways. And there are people that do probably spend eight hours a day like my brother, gaming. But we’re all in it and we’re all enjoying it, and we’re all getting that little dopamine hit of a reward.
We are not necessarily getting it from the platforms that could be doing it for us. Those platforms that are boring, those tasks that you put off to the last minute. Imagine if you were getting that little dopamine head of reward on those sorts of things you might not be behind on your taxes or all those other things that you haven’t got to yet.
Darren:
Without getting into online gambling, perhaps a tax form that you push the button, and it spins you at, whether you win your rebate or not. But what were some of the big insights that came out of the research? What are some of the things that marketers and even designers should be taking away from this research and using in practical terms, Victoria?
Victoria:
I think there’s a few things. I think two of the biggest things that came out of this is to learn from Gen One and use those insights to actually inform how we build for digital adopters. So, it’s not just, we went into this research saying, how do we better engage with this audience?
What we found was when we better engage with this audience, we are going to be doing a lot better for older audiences as well, because their behavior demands a better, more engaging, more hedonic experience. When we take that to digital adopters and older people, they’re going to have a better time as well.
We also found that actually what we take from learning about Gen One can help people that are more vulnerable as well, because they have this higher expectation. It can help people with disabilities, it can help people from different backgrounds to actually have a better digital experience.
So, that was the biggest learning, is that what we learn from Gen One, we can take to other generations and actually have a better experience for all. But also, there is going to be a need for multi-generational design online.
And we can see that in communications. We have different campaigns that target different audiences and different channels, but then sometimes we get to the digital experience and it’s just the same but why can’t we have multi-generational design when it calls for it?
Yes, we can take learnings from Gen One and apply that to other generations, but we might have specific ways for engaging with this audience that might be different. And ultimately, you’re going to get better response rates. You’re going to get better engagement, whether that’s a government service or a brand.
I think thinking about multi-generational design is really going to be really interesting for the next phase of the internet.
Darren:
I just realized we’re talking about Gen One, it includes millennials and Gen Z. I’ll say Z because I hate saying Z. But yeah, I mean, we’re not talking about just people under 18, we’re talking about people up into their early 30s.
Victoria:
And they’re not homogenous. We see differences in terms of their behavior across that Gen One group. My daughter is part of this group, she’s only 15. She can’t believe I was born before Google and think like, “How’d you do things?”
So, her relationship and her experience with digital is going to be a bit different to Amy’s who is a bit older, those in their 20s. So, it is a spectrum, but we are seeing commonalities across that group as well.
Darren:
What do you think are the things that Gen One want from the experience? Do they have expectations that are not being met, Amy?
Amy:
A hundred percent. I think the first thing that comes to mind is ease. It’s got to be easy to use. It has to be something that feels seamless from the moment you open the app or the website or anything like that because we lose attention quite quickly.
If anything, we’ve learned from the rise of TikTok, and reels and short form content is we love it when it gets to the point you get that dopamine hit and then you move on to the next thing. So, we really just don’t have the patience or the attention span to a fault maybe to wait around for things to load or wait around for an experience to get to the point and get to the heart of what is needed.
Beyond that, I think that enjoyment is something that is really important to our generation as well. If it’s easy to use, it’s instantly enjoyable. But if there’s extra things that can be added to make it a more emotional experience or a more hedonic experience, that’s a new word I learned this week, I think that that’s-
Darren:
So, you mean by hedonic you mean rewarding. Make you feel good about doing it, interacting, achieving something.
Amy:
Exactly. And that links back to gamification. You might have levels in a game and you get rewards and things like that and that just makes you feel good and makes you want to keep playing. So, why don’t we take learnings from that and apply it to things that maybe need a bit of help in that department.
And beyond that, I think accessibility is also really important to my generation. Not only are we super online, like intensely online, our lives and our digital lives are quite intertwined. We’re also quite well educated and quite tapped into what the world needs. And I think that accessibility has become something that’s really emerged from discussions online.
Most of my friends watch movies with subtitles, which is really interesting because I think that the fight to get subtitles on streaming services like Netflix, and even in movie cinemas, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in the movies wishing there was subtitles on the screen because everyone’s mumbling and I really want to get every little part of the story.
But yeah, we don’t need subtitles or most of us don’t need subtitles, but it’s something that’s serving a small community within the larger generation that actually benefits all, which I guess can sort of link with this idea that things that benefit Gen Z can end up benefiting all.
Darren:
I really like that. Victoria, you mentioned about multi-generational, there’s so much in what Amy just said that actually could appeal to various generations and as people age, and their hearing or their eyesight or whatever, people with disabilities, being able to cope with that.
But also, the one that I think is universal, and I’d love your perspective on this, is ease. It’s not like any of us have time to spare, do we? To fill out that form or to look up some piece of information and these are the things that we should be thinking about.
Victoria:
Absolutely. And ease is a really interesting one because I think a blocker in our minds more than anything has been that older generations, digital adopters, can’t learn new things. And so, it’s easier to keep that form as it was.
That’s not what we found. The better thing to do is to see how Amy’s generation thinks about ease and taking that to that new generation because actually what they’re presenting is not hard for digital adopters to learn, it’s actually just a better way of doing things.
So, I think that has been a barrier in our thinking, is like, “Oh, that TikTok generation know how to do that. They live in Snapchat.” So, all of that technology and that way of engaging is their world. That’s not true. We can take that and put it into my world, and my God, it’ll make my life a lot easier.
So, that’s our own barrier of thinking. It’s like, well, like you said before, we’ve trained people to fill out forms this way.
Darren:
But I’ve seen and heard in the industry people literally saying, “Don’t change the way this is,” and in quotes, and I hate the quotes, “best practice.” This is best practice UX design. You put this here, you put that there, you put this here, it needs to be this.
Like there’s all these rules that have been built up over the 15, 20 years that we’ve been working in the industry that say almost like, “And don’t break those rules because they’re sacrosanct.” But what you are saying is that they’re built into an attitude which is very much analog based to start with, and then just literally transferred it across to the internet.
Victoria:
I mean, that’s kind of how a lot of the content that sits on the internet and the services that we use every day has been built. And it’s also being built with a sort of an attitude of incrementality. “Oh, people know how to use that. We can tweak it; we can change it.”
What we are seeing with Gen One is that actually when experiences are really built intuitively, they’re hyper-personalized, they’re hedonic, they’re gamified, actually makes the whole experience better. So, instead of incrementality, let’s create leaps of change.
We are not going to leave audiences behind when we do that, because that’s best practice is what Amy is used to every day, that’s the new best practice.
Darren:
And do you think Amy, game developers get this more than most? I mean, because gaming does have that ability and I’m a gamer, I guess, I don’t think of myself in the stereotypical sense of a gamer, but there is something about gaming design that just keeps driving you further and further into that experience.
Amy:
Yeah, for sure.
Darren:
Never lets you off the hook in a way.
Amy:
I can’t call myself a gamer by any means, but I have played a few on my phone here and there, bored in an airport. So, I think game developers have a lot to teach us. They definitely have mastered the ability in getting people to buy in and stay with the product for a really long time.
Like, you can only imagine how many levels are in certain games and game franchises, and they often have many different spinoff stories. And it’s not only the game itself, but there’s really compelling storytelling that’s attached to a lot of the most popular games around.
But I think that kind of casting them off to the side compared to the rest of the UX and UI industry is maybe not the right thing to do. I think that there’s definitely teachings and learnings that can be exchanged between game developers and wider product developers because it’s just a niche within the industry essentially.
Darren:
And there’s something I just want to challenge you on because one of the things you said was, Gen One doesn’t have a lot of time to commit to a particular thing, your attention span and people go, “Oh yeah, we’re getting our goldfish, attention span of five seconds,” which I don’t believe.
Because it’s not about needing to serve up different content all the time, like TikTok does. I think it’s about changing the experience regularly which is what gamers do so well. It could be seen as one journey. You’re playing one game, but there’s this constant refreshing of the challenge.
And the same with people are still binge-watching streaming services, there are still Gen Ones that will commit eight or nine hours of their weekend to binge watch their favorite series and yet that demands a huge amount of commitment to a storyline.
Amy:
Well, yeah. I think that that’s very valid. And it makes me think about all the times that I felt my attention span slipping from me. And I think it eventually ladders back to I’m doing something that’s not fulfilling and not enjoyable. So, then my attention span is suffering.
So, if I’m working on maybe a job at work that is not my favorite, I find it hard to kind of lock in and get into that flow state. Or you are watching a movie that’s not to your liking or something like that. So, you end up grabbing out TikTok, you’re scrolling through looking for something else.
But you’re right, when you have an amazing show on Netflix and you just want to lock in and spend nine hours watching it in one day, it’s because they’ve made you feel something. They’ve helped you feel a sense of enjoyment and really engage with you and engage with your interests.
And I think that’s probably where the distinction lies between products and media and services that capture your attention and the ones that maybe make your attention span suffer.
Darren:
And I think you hit the nail on the head before when you said one is storytelling, the other is, particularly inside storytelling, building characters and situations that really hook you in emotionally and make demand. Not even make, demand that you care about the characters, that they’re sharing those stories.
So, it’s really interesting because I think the advertising industry has fallen for the trap of, “We’re going to make it shorter,” because they’ve forgotten that it is actually, you are able to hook people in even Gen One where they’re saying, “Well, they changed their attention every two seconds,” but they only change their attention if you haven’t hooked them in in the first place.
Amy:
That’s right. A hundred percent.
Darren:
Victoria, the other area that people often say is the opportunity of engaging an individual is personalization. Being able to customize or personalize the experience to their interests or their circumstances. Did that come up in the research as a opportunity, I guess, for marketers?
Victoria:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s not about being creepy. I think personalization-
Darren:
The stalker.
Victoria:
The personalization has become a little creepy from time to time. I think people still want to have a sense of control about their personal data. And it’s interesting for Gen One, they’re more comfortable giving their data to brands than to government services.
It’s the reverse with digital adopters. They’re more trusting in government than they are with brands. So, it’s about, you-
Darren:
Well, that’s really interesting, isn’t it? They’re more trusting of brands and business than they are of government. Was there an underlying reason that came out of the research or that would be quite difficult to explore, I imagine?
Victoria:
Well, the thing that we found is that when people are really transparent about how they’re using their data, they’re transparent about the efficacy of how they’re using it and in the organization that Gen One feel really comfortable.
So, I think because they don’t feel that about government, they feel less confident and less trusting of government services, they actually feel more confident with brands. So, that’s probably why because they have much more of an open and transparent relationship with brands-
Darren:
Because we know brands are trying to sell us something whereas what’s government trying to do?
Victoria:
Yeah, exactly. Well, that’s the job for government. Is to say that actually, a lot of the services that we want this audience to engage with are for their betterment to health services and connecting them to government support. Those are things that are helping this audience, but if they’re not trusting them, then there’s a barrier.
Darren:
So, this is the thing that gets me about the lack of transparency on my data and it doesn’t matter whether it’s banks or government or insurance companies. I mean, the number of times I’ve had to enter the most basic information, my name, my date of birth, my residential address, all of this information.
And yet every time I log in and it asks me to fill in a form, none of those things are pre-populated. I have to retype everything again. It’s like I’ve given you all this information and you’re not even using it to make my life to Amy’s point easier. I mean, that’s such a small thing to do but they never do it.
Victoria:
And that’s what we mean by personalization. Personalization, that’s not sort of creepy and stalky, but personalization that takes out the burden, that reduces the load on you and takes some of that effort onto the organization or to the government service to have done all that stuff. That’s the type of personalization that people want and services that get to know you.
So, get to know the things that you like, or I think Amy was talking about Duolingo before which is an education-based platform but it gets to know you, it gets to know when you use it. One of the services that I use, everyone laughs at me, I’m a Peloton converting.
And you feel like you’re in a relationship with a piece of technology because it gets to know you, you have an exercise this week or you have, and here is a little dopamine head of well done. You’re up to 50, all those sorts of things.
That’s when personalization feels like you’re in a relationship. It’s very transparent how they’re using my day there and serving it back to me and it’s clear. And it’s taking effort off my shoulders. That’s what we want from personalization.
Darren:
Amy, the whole issue for government is a huge one, isn’t it? Because the voters, this big group of people that are digital natives and yet they don’t seem to, from the research, trust the government with their data.
Amy:
Yeah, definitely. I think it’s not so much about not trusting the government with their data. I think Gen One tend to feel like, from the research we can see that Gen One tends to feel pretty okay with sharing their data and aren’t too concerned with privacy generally but as long as that’s used in a responsible way.
For myself personally, I don’t really see my data as an individual being too important in the grand scheme of things. I think the major concern I have with it is when I start seeing ads popping up about things that I spoke about days previous, that’s when it starts to feel creepy like surveillance capitalism.
What are you doing? Are you listening to me while I’m talking with my friends? But I think the government point kind of ladders back to a lot of issues that young people are facing currently. Socially and economically, a lot of us are really struggling with cost of living.
Heaps of us are moving out later, moving out of the family home much later because things are just costing way too much. Struggling to think about buying property or improving our finances, climate crisis is causing a lot of stress on people.
And I think when we see our governments take quite passive responses to some of these issues and we don’t see that their actions are in our best interests, then that really helps perpetuate this lack of trust.
And when you see that and then you think about your data going to the government, then it’s like, “Well, if they’re already not taking our best interests at heart with things that are quite out in the open, then what are they doing in private with our data?” So, I can understand that particular concern.
Darren:
And it’s interesting because there’s a political trend, particularly in Australia where the major parties are losing ground to independence because the next generation of voters that have come into the market, I guess to vote are not voting for the major parties to the point you just made.
Neither of them seem to be really interested in what’s best for that that cohort of people so why should I play your game if you are not interested in looking after us?
Amy:
I definitely back that point. A lot of my friends and myself included, never vote for the major parties. Honestly, this might be a personal opinion but I’m sure a lot of my generation share this. It’s almost like, which one’s the lesser of two evils. I don’t necessarily see much difference in how they operate, when Liberals in power versus Labor.
So, I think a lot of us are open to these more independent parties or open to maybe moving towards something a bit different that we haven’t seen before. Because these well trusted, well established political parties, we haven’t really seen much from them benefiting us.
Darren:
And the fact that at 18 being given the right to vote seems to come with it, the promise to be heard and then not be heard no matter what you vote seems it would obviously turn people off.
Personalization though, is starting to get some big question marks from marketers and the industry generally. Because we’re starting to question whether the big tech platforms, the Metas, the Googles, the ByteDance for TikTok and Amazon whether they’ve actually put this data together. And I love when you said earlier, “I don’t feel like my personal data’s that important in the whole scheme of things.”
What we’re starting to realize is that a lot of the data’s just trash because of the way they’ve collected it. How do we get to meaningful personalization when there’s so many question marks around whether they actually understand who we are as individuals and sorry, that goes beyond Gen One, that’s for all of us.
Victoria:
That’s a big question. I think we’re developing some big government services at the moment. And I think it’s about making sure that your data strategy and your data infrastructure is capturing the right data at the right points, and then serving that insight back to the individual at the right time.
And there’s data everywhere and there’s data rubbish everywhere, there’s a lot of it. And there’s a lot of it can just be distracting. It’s about really trying to hone in on what you can learn from, what is intentional, what can be insightful, and what can be really helpful.
Because at the end of the day, we are trying to create services and experiences that bring people closer to brands or to help them from a government service perspective. And it’s trying to sort of stay focused on that through that customer journey from search intent right through to conversion or whatever that might be. So, trying to sort of block out the noise a lot of the time as well.
Darren:
It’s interesting the timing of this report because there are so many issues at the moment, particularly around data and the use in paid media. But this is really impacting the other areas around owned and earned and shared, isn’t it?
Victoria:
Yeah. I mean, absolutely. I mean, I think the reason we did this report is because we felt that it was a point in time to stop and rethink how we do things across personalization, across data, across UX, UI and everything.
Because also you can spend a lot of time trying to get people to a destination or to a service, spend a lot of time using data, using paid media to drive people to a destination and then not fulfill on that promise or that need or create a relationship.
So, it’s kind of making sure at this point in time where things like cost-of-living crisis impacts decision making from generations, everything is much more expensive for marketers to be able to build and to create that we are being efficient as well.
Because I think efficiency is also really key. It’s what you take in and it’s what you take out as well of an experience. So, I think that’s why it’s also really relevant right now is when marketers are going to spend money on digital projects and services more so than ever before let’s make sure we do it the best way possible.
Darren:
Because for everyone time is money and taking more of my time than is really needed. On the other hand, take my time, but reward me for that seems to be the message that’s coming out of this.
Victoria:
Absolutely. And for marketers as well, it’s heavy lifting to create these digital products and services. They’re huge investments. Yes, they can be iterative, and they can learn and we can be agile in terms of how we build things, but they’re still very costly and time consuming. So, it’s about making sure that right from the get go, we are taking the best insights into how we create things.
Darren:
Victoria, do you think the global pandemic, the locking down, the move away from bricks and mortar retail to online, to cocooning in our homes has perhaps accelerated or amplified this?
Victoria:
I think it absolutely has accelerated people’s comfort with doing much more online. But I think that there’s much more marketers we can do to reward that experience. We are still giving people pretty crap experiences, to be honest.
Yes, the audience is there. Yes, we’ve built that audience by proxy because they had to do things that way, but then we are not necessarily giving them a great experience in return.
Darren:
And that’s highlighted by the fact that as we came out of those lockdowns, people drifted straight back to bricks and mortar for the human interaction. But Amy, from Gen One point of view, I mean, it’s just part of life, isn’t it? Whether you’re online or face-to-face, are they balanced or is there one that dominates, do you think?
Amy:
I think it varies depending on the individual. There’s definitely a trend towards living quite digitally as Gen One but I think we’re also seeing a lot of people moving towards trying to find more of a balance and disconnecting and having that maybe discipline because attention spans and mental health have been really impacted by how much time we spend online.
And I personally feel it. I know a lot of my friends and family feel it as well. And while we do live a lot of our lives online, sometimes those interactions aren’t necessarily fulfilling or adding to enjoyment or making us feel better at the end of it.
So, I think it is about striking a balance and yeah, maybe it’s making sure that the digital experiences we do have are enjoyable and worthwhile, and then we are able to switch off and then go and live our lives outside, that’s where I see it.
Victoria:
I think that was one of the interesting things that came out of the report, is that this generation has really high highs, but also low lows from a digital lifestyle. They have higher points of enjoyment from all those things that we’ve talked about, but they have higher points of isolation and mental health issues and mental health worries from this digital lifestyle. So, they’re much more emotional experience that they have with digital products and services.
Darren:
It’s interesting because digital adopters are inclined to look at that generation and think, “Oh, my God, they’re spending way too much time online, too much screen time. We need to control that.” So, that’s a shared concern for both?
Victoria:
Actually, Amy’s generation Gen One are more concerned about the time that they spend online than us, than digital adopters, because they can see how pervasive it is. So, they’ve got the highs, but they’re also very much more aware of the lows and those moments where they can feel terrible as a result of feeling isolated or alone or bullied or whatever that might be, they’re more in tune with that.
So, how that plays out in terms of the rest of their sort of lives as that generation grows up and it gets older is going to be interesting because we talk in the report about digital diets and how people construct their digital diets.
Their digital diet might continue to change, as there’s this greater awareness of actually, I’m spending too much time online. Whereas for us digital adopters, we feel like we’re only doing a little bit. I’m just quickly just checking Instagram or something like that. I do it in meetings sometimes and people are like, “Oh my, I’m on Instagram, my God.” So, we’re not as conscious of it but this audience are.
Darren:
I walked into a room with a group of young people that were in the room together to supposedly interact, and they were all on their phones. And I said, “What are you doing?” Most of them were talking to each other but through a chat, and I just went, “Oh, my God.”
Amy:
I mean, I’m guilty of that for sure. When me and my friends are in meetings, sometimes we just send a little sneaky slack message to have a second underlying conversation.
Darren:
Well, we see it when we’re running pitches, particularly online, when it’s done online, and the clients will have set up a chat room and they’ll be just chatting with each other about what the agency’s presenting.
And it’s interesting. I always try and be part of that just to make sure I keep them focused on what they should be focusing.
Look, this research is just fascinating. It’s available, isn’t it? How do people access the report, because I believe it’s quite substantial.
Victoria:
It’s a substantial report and we are going to be sort of dropping chapters every week from July. So, that’s the best way to consume it, the best way to kind of get your head into it. It’s got all the stats; it’s got all of the detail around the methodology. We’re really quite broad in terms of who we surveyed and how we surveyed them.
https://genonereport.com.au/
Darren:
Okay. And we’ll put the link in the notes, in the show notes so that people can get straight to it. We’ve run out of time, but Victoria and Amy, thank you so much for sharing two perspectives on what is absolutely fascinating research. Thank you.
Victoria:
Thank you. It’s been fun.
Amy:
Thank you. Enjoyed it.
Darren:
Just a last question. If someone, anyone picks up this report, what would you like to see as the biggest change that happens in online design?
@darren@trinityp3.com is it possible to change this to ‘creative innovation studio’ – this is our Australia positioning?
