We're all the Google generation now
In Douglas Coupland's Jpod - a wry, witty satire of North American corporate culture - the narrator, Ethan Jarlewski ruminates on the power of search:
'The problem is, after a week of intense googling, we've started to burn out on knowing the answer to everything. God must feel that way all the time. I think people in the year 2020 are going to be nostalgic for the sensation of feeling clueless.'
The Google generation is often defined as those born after 1993 but as a recent report commissioned by the British Library and partners into research and information behaviour finds: we're all the Google generation now. And for many consumers, Google and other branded search engines are their only window on the world of information and content.
The report - which can be downloaded for free at www.tinyurl.com/2eslnr - found that scholars of today do not read in a linear, sequential fashion online, in fact: 'everyone exhibits a bouncing/flicking behaviour, which sees them searching horizontally rather than vertically. Power browsing and viewing is the normal for all.' In other words, people are not reading in the way we traditionally understand it. Consumers of academic and educational content in this environment are 'promiscuous, diverse and volatile'. They 'skim', often engaging in the content they discover in a very shallow way - one or two pages before moving elsewhere, commonly not returning.
Most importantly: this emerging information behaviour is not just limited to younger students - it is universal and characteristic of researchers across all generations.
The report does find some age-related differences in research behaviour: for example, 17-21 year-olds are much more likely to trust branded search engines than older scholars. Read more about this research at my blog on the real story of book publishing in the digital age: Reading eBooks on the Beach?
This 'new form of information seeking behaviour... horizontal, bouncing, checking and viewing in nature' has important implications for content marketers inside and outside the academic environment. Using Search Engine Marketing to enable people to find your content is only the first step of the journey. You also need to create what Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg (in their excellent Waiting for your Cat to Bark?) call 'persuasive systems': the creation of measurable, interactive content that that meets the needs of consumers and influences them to take action.
I don't think Ethan Jarlewski is right: we won't feel nostalgic for the sensation of feeling clueless in 2020. Rather, we will continue to be unforgiving of online content that does not help us find the relevant and valued information that we're seeking. And instead of hitting 'buy now', we'll hit the back button, never to return.
Be relevant, be valued and get your customers to act.
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