Not the 16-35 years

Nokia may be eyeing trend-setting consumers in the 16-35 years age group for ‘circular entertainment’ (see my previous post), but in 5 years, 35-year-olds will be over 40 and their lives may revolve around something more important than creating their own entertainment – ‘creating’ being an essential criterion in the phenomenon Nokia is describing.

That’s because most 40-year-olds will be in the middle of their careers, with growing children, and pressures of upward mobility driving their lifestyles. Creating their own entertainment is unlikely to be top-of-mind for them – though, a digital lifestyle is certainly going to be ubiquitous 5 years from today. Most likely, it’ll be the children in the family who will create their own entertainment.

In fact, this is no big discovery. Today, perhaps not children, but trend-setting teens are finding their own ways to entertain themselves. They are sitting on the Internet, downloading stuff, creating pages about themselves, networking with others, and sharing their creations – self descriptions, stories, photos, images, videos, podcasts, comments on other websites, blogs, etc.

They are also on their mobilephones – talking, messaging text, images and videos, sharing ringtones, listening to music or playing games. Even while studying or commuting, they have their iPods or other MP3 players plugged in for music – music which they have downloaded from the Internet or from their friends to create personal playlists.

You won’t find them watching TV half the day like the generation before them used to. Today’s teens are digitally active – participating and creating content for themselves. If I were Nokia looking at future trends, I would study the trend-setting 12-24 year olds today (and not the 16-35 years age group as they did).