It's no secret that today's teens are technologically savvy. While Generation X grew up with cable television and rotary-dial landlines, today's teens enjoy streaming video on demand and can surf the Internet or make calls on their cell phones. They have instant access to the entire world.
To better understand these youth, the Pew Research Center has conducted more than 100 surveys and written more than 200 reports on the topic of teen and adult Internet use. Its most recent report brings together up-to-date findings about Internet and social media use among young adults by situating it within comparable data for adolescents and adults older than 30. Pew culled the most current data on teens from a survey of 800 adolescents between ages 12 and 17 that it conducted last year.
That survey revealed a 20 percent increase in Internet use for teens ages 12-17 from 2000 to 2009- Ia 2003, 73 percent of teens went online. In 2009, that percentage rose to 93.
Today nearly 73 percent of teens go online to access social networks, compared to 55 percent of teens three years ago.
And it would seem that teens are not just going online to gossip and eavesdrop on friends and classmates on their favorite social-networking sites. Sixty-two percent of teens use the Internet to get their news and participate in politics; 17 percent go online to gather information on topics that might be too "uncomfortable" to broach with a parent or guardian (such as issues relating to drug use and sexual health); and 31 percent of teens get health, dieting or physical fitness information from the Internet.
Malini Hoover, a media entrepreneur from Albuquerque, N.M., and well aware of these numbers, is leveraging them to teach teens the life skills they will need as adults. In 2009, Hoover launched the Teen Entertainment and Life Skills Multimedia Network, iaam.com. Her goal is to connect teens not just with other teens but with valuable information on real-life issues concerning money, career, health and lifestyle. Hoover's site uses videos, articles, comics, forums and blogs to communicate the importance of life skills to its teenage audience.
"We spend so much time teaching kids math and science and language and social studies. Schools were never given the task of teaching life skills; it was always the family. But kids are growing up in nuclear families, and parents don't have time to sit down, and they don't realize kids need to get this information as early as possible" so they can make "wise choices," says Hoover, founder and CEO ofiaam.com.
Another reality that Hoover is all too familiar with is the extraordinary number of college students who have yet to begin their careers but are already drowning in credit card debt. Sallie Mae, the largest student-loan provider, reported that in 2008 the average undergraduate carried $3,173 in credit card debt, and college seniors who own at least one credit card had racked up an average of $4,138 in credit card debt by the time they received their diplomas.
'You cannot start your life in that kind of debt," says Hoover. "I wanted to do something where I would be contributing every day to society. I could not stand the idea of young adults starting their careers deep in debt. I always thought if they were equipped with proper knowledge and started to understand money earlier in life, then they could avoid the debt trap," says Hoover. She connects with teens through creative fun while helping them obtain and hone valuable life skills in finance, career, health and lifestyle. Iaam.com's ultimate goal is to make a positive and lasting impression on today's youth, she says.
Before launching iaam.com, Hoover met with and interviewed teens in focus groups and through those interviews realized that they are not interested in reading articles on Me skins. Videos grab teens' attention and will hold their attention longer than print. "They will give videos a chance, as opposed to an article," says Hoover. The majority of information dispensed by iaam.com is through visual and audio entertainment rather than print. Hoover calls iaam.com Nickelodeon on a financial and life-skill mission.
The name, iaam.com, is short for I Am A Millionaire, not monetarily speaking but in all aspects of life. Hoover learned from the teens she interviewed that children as young as 9 know what a millionaire is, so she decided to tie the site's name to the site's financial theme.
Some Internet sites use sex, violence, drugs and a party atmosphere to attract teens, says Hoover. But she insists that these ploys are unnecessary. "If you provide clean entertainment, you can still attract them," says Hoover. Teens "are looking for right ways to be confident, and they want to know about money, and they want to know what is going on. The way they have accepted and embraced technology, a lot of them are environmentally aware," though with only a basic understanding, she says.
As iaam.com grows, Hoover hopes that it will become the aggregator of news, as she forms partnerships with other useful informational sites to gain access to quality content. Currently, Hoover is partnering with PBS, and she and her staff create the missing content. Eventually, she would like to create two sites: one for teens and another for young adults.
In many ways, Hoover says, society measures success by the amount of wealth one accumulates, giving little attention to other aspects of life. Iaam.com encourages teens to define a successful life as one with unique individual goals, unrelated to pressure from peers or society in general. "We feature successful young people who understand the importance of passion and how to achieve dreams through hard work and delayed gratification to accomplish overall happiness," says Hoover. "Iaam.com offers an alternative message to teens that says, 'I am confident. I am money-sawy. I am aware.' We believe teens are extremely smart and creative, and by offering a bold and positive message, we would attract them to the site and build a creative and intelligent community," says Hoover.
Hoover, who lives in the Southwest, says she has known from the beginning of this entrepreneurial endeavor that appealing to Hispanic youth would be crucia to the success of iaam.com. "Hispanics have so much to offer, so why should we exclude them? It would be good for the society, for them, and for the site if we work together in making everyone successful," she says.
So when Hoover needed an intelligent, money-sawy hero in one of iaam.com's comic strips called "Payday Loan Blues," the artist created a Hispanic female named Mar�a with a real head for finances. While other characters in the comic are paying for their partying and shopping sprees by seeming cash loans in advance of their paychecks, Maria is the voice of reason. Eventually, Mar�a teaches all the characters in the comic to only buy what they can afford, avoiding debt and the "payday loan blues."
"And that is a very, very different message," says Hoover. "When we were doing research, we never saw Hispanic girls in empowering positions. We thought it was a big statement to have a Hispanic girl that is so smart and so savvy to be the hero of the comic." She promises that the next upgrade to the site will offer Spanish translations of the origina content, but she is searching for sponsors to help defray those costs.
Much of iaam.com's content is the result of its partnership with PBS, but many of its videos and news articles come from other Web sites. "If it works and it fits our message and the teens are going to like it, we get it from the Internet," says Hoover. And most of this content is free. She notes that as long as an Internet video has an embed code, the code a webmaster uses to embed that video into a Web site, the video is available for all Internet users.
Casual visitors to iaam.com get the latest news, fun and games and lifeskill tips. But those visitors who become iaam.com members by creating an account aso have the opportunity to earn money by competing in any of three contests. But money is not the only reward. During the current economic climate, Hoover says, society is counting on creativity and innovation to get the country out of the recession. The iaam.com contests offer teens a platform to showcase their creativity and the opportunity to earn money while doing it.
"The contests are a way for teens to find their passions, meet others with similar interests, and build genuine communities. We should not be killing creativity; we should be nurturing it," says Hoover, noting that students can earn as much money in an I Am contest as they would working in a restaurant or a retail outlet.
"As a social entrepreneur," she says, "I want to lead journalism into social responsibility by providing useful journalism to teens - to enhance their ability to understand money and debt, have more Mulling careers and a heathy lifestyle, and be inspired to do bigger and better things for themselves and the society in general."
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"When we were doing research, we never saw Hispanic girls in empowering positions,"
Malini Hoover, Founder and CEO, iaam.com
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