I find this all exceedingly strange - why should we care about a teenager's opinions, right or wrong? Kids don't make money, and they spend relatively small amounts of parent/student-loan money. Moreover, all signs point to a difficult job market for new graduates, kids moving back home for extended periods, etc, so the argument that they will soon spend money doesn't resonate. Why then is this demographic so coveted? Heck why do these kids have smartphones at all?
I begin to suspect that youth-obsessed culture is actually a temporary phenomena. The reason it happened in the 90's and 00's was that this was the dawn of the consumer internet, and college kids were the first adopters (a fact that is itself a confluence of educational theory and the enthusiasm/capability of computer science academics)
Against this, we could say that college kids are a better demo for this stuff because they are so pure, in the sense that they aren't constrained by jobs or other income production - so they are at a magical junction between articulate and irresponsible, like having a society of our own "id"s running around. If we can please them in their primordial state, then surely that will have resonance in the hearts of the middle-aged who's youthful lusts still exist under rocky layers of life's harsh requirements.
I begin to suspect that youth-obsessed culture is actually a temporary phenomena. The reason it happened in the 90's and 00's was that this was the dawn of the consumer internet, and college kids were the first adopters (a fact that is itself a confluence of educational theory and the enthusiasm/capability of computer science academics)
Against this, we could say that college kids are a better demo for this stuff because they are so pure, in the sense that they aren't constrained by jobs or other income production - so they are at a magical junction between articulate and irresponsible, like having a society of our own "id"s running around. If we can please them in their primordial state, then surely that will have resonance in the hearts of the middle-aged who's youthful lusts still exist under rocky layers of life's harsh requirements.