Teens can't tell the difference between Google ads and search results
theverge.com
theverge.com
In related news: 70% of teenagers fail basic reading comprehension tests?
Baselines matter.
It's just another part of learning.
Or they just don't care. Or they're blasted with ads so much all the time anyway working out the differences just isn't that important to them.
From the outside, this might look like "failing basic reading comprehension". But I don't think that's what's going on.
(I got lucky. I really like how it turned out, so I'm glad it was permanent.)
I remember how "old people" (now over 50) have had a hard time learning computers back in the 90s. "Kids these days" just don't see computers as an awesome tool that needs to be mastered and are not socialized to fight with a config.sys to play the game.
That's gone now. Today, config.sys is something "old people" talk about, why would a kid learn /that/?
Growing up in the 1980s, knowing about computers was actively encouraged by all the adults in my life (parents, teachers, etc.)
While some of the particular uses of that knowledge may have been rebellious, actually gaining the knowledge itself was not.
> It was us who could teach our teachers how to use and program a computer, not the other way around.
For the people for whom that was true, IME, computer knowledge often wasn't the only thing it was true about.
> That's gone now.
No, to the extent that it was true in the 1980s and 1990s, its still true now. Most adults (including most teachers) still don't know much about computers, and its seems just as common for young people to be able exceed the teachers they are likely to have at skill with programming current computers as it was in the 1980s or 1990s. And there are plenty of rebellious applications of computer-related knowledge for the young.
At work it was common to see even university graduates pasting-in code from the first search result.
Even if it was never the case that most kids were computer wizards, to many people, most computer wizards were kids. The way our minds work, that's just about the same thing.
I actually disagree with the notion that games are what separated the "wizards" from the mooks, and instead just the basics of what made computers interesting (Web Browser, Chat Room, simple applications) are what made the wizards of the 80's and 90's. Parents at the time were already familiar with games by and large via consoles - most of them probably had some version of Atari at least or knew someone who did, and the parents probably thought that all gaming was the same; just stick in the cartridge. I know that personally I had a heck of a time explaining why we needed computer upgrades for various games, or why DSL was essential for my Diablo and Warcraft experiences.
Often it's the simplest of tasks and knowledge, such as knowing how to quickly get accurate search results that aren't from Google/Amazon/Facebook or comfort with whatever office suite that elevates someone to the status of Wizard. A lot of folks have a surprisingly small comfort zone when it comes to computers and online, and being able to operate far outside of that tiny comfort zone is what gives them the impression of wizardry.
It's just better for traffic/interest to make your study/article along the lines of "OMG you won't believe what kids theses days..."
or who do you think is the target group for spam emails? teens?
I remember thinking, "I don't even notice they are there" which ironically seems to have been the goal, with the slight tweak of "I don't even notice they are ads".
if you search for "brand x", the first ad will be a paid link to "brandX.com" and the first organic result, will be the same, free link.
But that way Google now can get $1 out of my click from brand X. and they are in a really bad position, because if they do not pay, google can show a "Brand Y" link on the ad spot.
it is a win-win for Google, and a Loose-Loose for companies that want users to find them on websearches.
[1] - https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/6118?hl=en
You can limit your ads shown by geography, time of time, and some other factors...
That said, we were able to get results -- it takes time and a ton of persistence.
which is odd because I can't remember the last time I saw ads outlined in a box. They used to have a different background color. It was quite clear that the ad results were something different. Now all you get is this tiny little box that says "Ad". It's quite easy to miss.
http://cubeupload.com/im/y24qHx.png
(I had to upload this a few times, as I couldn't readily find any image host that wasn't both free, didn't require login/registering, and didn't wrap the image in some kind of web page -- even after years of using an ad-blocker, my mind refuses to "see" any box/region marked as an ad... The image is the square with the text "Trainers - up to 60% off ..." in it ;-)
This is not true! The more you're accustomed to a technology the less you understand it. Teens have no f-ing clue how the internet works, how computers work. They don't spend weekends putting together a computer from scratch, and setting up a LAN at one of their friends house.
This is not a criticism, that's just how it is. I remember vividly getting my first VCR. When it was broken my dad and I were able to open it and somehow fix it up (to a point :), now who can do that?
The whole "they were born with it, they just get it" is a myth and totally backward, the more you take a technology for granted the less you understand it.
The timeline is almost puzzling:
• Episode "Sponsored Content" (s19e08), in which advertising disguised as news is first mentioned, aired on November 18.
• The Ofcom report was published on November 20.
Maybe the report was announced early, Trey Parker and Matt Stone heard about it and got the idea from there?
/glib