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Generation Q would be doing itself a favor, and America a favor, if it demanded from every candidate who comes on campus answers to three questions: What is your plan for mitigating climate change? What is your plan for reforming Social Security? What is your plan for dealing with the deficit — so we all won’t be working for China in 20 years?

America needs a jolt of the idealism, activism and outrage (it must be in there) of Generation Q. That’s what twentysomethings are for — to light a fire under the country. But they can’t e-mail it in, and an online petition or a mouse click for carbon neutrality won’t cut it. They have to get organized in a way that will force politicians to pay attention rather than just patronize them.

Teens generally do not believe that technology negatively influences the quality of their writing, but they do acknowledge that the informal styles of writing that mark the use of these text-based technologies for many teens do occasionally filter into their school work. Overall, nearly two-thirds of teens (64%) say they incorporate some informal styles from their text-based communications into their writing at school.



• 50% of teens say they sometimes use informal writing styles instead of proper capitalization and punctuation in their school assignments;
• 38% say they have used text shortcuts in school work such as "LOL" (which stands for "laugh out loud");

Fully 97% of teens ages 12-17 play computer, web, portable, or console games. Additionally:



• 50% of teens played games "yesterday."
• 86% of teens play on a console like the Xbox, PlayStation, or Wii.
• 73% play games on a desktop or a laptop computer.
• 60% use a portable gaming device like a Sony PlayStation Portable, a Nintendo DS, or a Game Boy.
• 48% use a cell phone or handheld organizer to play games.

For most teens, gaming is a social activity and a major component of their overall social experience. Although most teens play games by themselves at least occasionally, just one-quarter (24%) of teens only play games alone, and the remaining three-quarters of teens play games with others at least some of the time.



• 65% of game-playing teens play with other people who are in the room with them.
• 27% play games with people who they connect with through the internet.
• 82% play games alone, although 71% of this group also plays with others.

These younger generations are significantly more likely than their older counterparts to seek entertainment through online videos, online games and virtual worlds, and they are also more likely to download music to listen to later. Internet users ages 12-32 are more likely than older users to read other people's blogs and to write their own; they are also considerably more likely than older generations to use social networking sites and to create profiles on those sites.² Younger internet users often use personal blogs to update friends on their lives, and they use social networking sites to keep track of and communicate with friends.³ Teen and Generation Y users are also significantly more likely than older generations to send instant messages to friends.

By a large margin, teen internet users' favorite online activity is game playing; 78% of 12-17 year-old internet users play games online,⁴ compared with 73% of online teens who email, the second most popular activity for this age group. Online teens are also significantly more likely to play games than any other generation, including Generation Y, only half (50%) of whom play online games.

Our surveys show that while 71% of teens owned cell phones in 2008:



• 77% of teens owned a game console like an Xbox or a PlayStation
• 74% of teens owned an iPod or mp3 player
• 60% of teens "owned" a desktop or laptop computer
• 55% of teens owned a portable gaming device