JAMES Study 2018: Whether TV or music, young people stream via flat rate
Watching unlimited films and series at any time and listening to the music you like best: this is the norm for young people today. One in two can access a flat-rate subscription from Netflix, Spotify or a competitor. One in three young people has a streaming subscription themselves. One in four households also has a flat rate for games.
These are the findings of the new JAMES Study 2018 on the media and leisure behaviour of young people aged between 12 and 19, which was published today. The study has been conducted every two years since 2010 by the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences on behalf of Swisscom. This time, almost 1,200 young people in Switzerland were asked about their media and leisure behaviour.
The flat rates of streaming services allow young people to consume media in a completely individualised way. In addition, the services' algorithm, which suggests similar programmes to users, also influences users' tastes. As a result, seven of the ten most popular series among young people are Netflix series. «In the future, media literacy will increasingly mean being able to put together the ideal media menu from the millions of options available,» says ZHAW researcher and head of the study Daniel Süss.
As streaming services become more popular, many devices are becoming less relevant: The number of games consoles, radios, DVDs or MP3 players that young people own is decreasing because everything they need is on their smartphones or other internet-enabled devices. Almost all respondents have a mobile phone and use it for around 2.5 hours a day - mainly to communicate via WhatsApp, Snapchat and Instagram. This figure has not increased since the last JAMES study. Study co-director Gregor Waller notes (see video interview above) that young people probably do not count their streaming time as online time.
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How do young people use social media in 2018?
Facebook continues to lose importance, especially among younger people. Across the entire age range surveyed, only one in five people still use the network regularly.
Young people tend to use social media reactively: they look around, like, comment and get in touch with each other in the chat areas. According to their own statements, less than half of all young people post content on a regular basis. And if they do, then only on profiles that are protected as private, or content that is offline again after a few hours, such as stories or snaps. «Apparently, the sensitisation of young people to publishing content on social networks is bearing fruit,» says study co-leader Gregor Waller.
In terms of leisure behaviour without media, it is noticeable that the amount of time young people spend with friends has decreased. On the other hand, time spent with family has increased. The study directors attribute this to the general social trend of «social cocooning» - withdrawing into the family because of an insecure feeling about the world.
The frequency of cybergrooming - being approached by strangers with sexual intentions on the internet -has increased significantly. Whereas in 2014, 19 per cent had stated that something like this had already happened to them, this figure has now risen to 30 per cent. Among 18 and 19-year-olds, the figure is almost half. Cyberbullying has remained stable since 2010 - 23 per cent of young people say they have been bullied online. Young people from different backgrounds and even 12-year-olds are affected.
The collected results of the study are available at: www.zhaw.ch/psychologie/james
