What Types Of Everyday Information Do Tweens Perceive Themselves As Needing?

By Author: Mark Gary
Total Articles: 61
Comment this article

Information needs is a topic commonly explored in the research on information behavior. We sought to explore whether tweens, with access to a greater array of information sources and formats than children had just fifteen years ago, may have everyday-life information needs that are unique as compared to those of older populations, as well as compared to those documented in earlier school-based research on students' needs. In focus groups, tweens explained the common types of Juicy Couture Watch information needs they experience in their everyday life. The tweens' most commonly reported information needs concerned concrete, immediate, or short-term goals and activities (rather than long-range needs, e.g., career choices); these included school work, social events and relationships, sports and hobbies, consumer information, fashion and popular culture, neighborhood information, and "stuff a ubiquitous term used to describe the object of spontaneous, undirected information-sharing, as in "stuff that went on at school," "stuff that you found on the Internet," ...
... and "stuff like movies or where to get the latest video games."

The urban Ministry tweens differed in their concerns from the two suburban groups (School and University). When asked what local information tweens needed, the Ministry group included how to deal with bullies, dangerous strangers, drug and alcohol users, and unsafe places. For example, one tween in a focus group reports: "If you're about to get into a fight, like how to react, how to refuse it, and not make people think you're like a wimp when you refuse it."4 Although the urban Ministry tweens shared concerns and needs with the other groups, these particular concerns stood out for them. All of the tweens stressed the need to Juicy Couture Jewellery share and receive private or secret information an intrinsic part of social information exchange. The ability to keep secrets, ranging from everyday "news" to more "juicy" topics such as quarrels or crushes, was an important part of friendship evaluation and trust. The need for privacy and the ability to trust peers seemed to be the driving force in interpersonal information-sharing. Face-to-face communication was usually preferred over other forms, even if it required traveling or waiting until friends could meet at school or at some other social spot. A prime example of private or confidential information in-eluded the following: 'You tell stuff like if someone's being mean to you, or you don't like somebody and, like, got mad at them. Or if you got in a fight with somebody."

The tweens had strong ideas of who could be trusted with certain kinds of information needs. Trust was a quality generally established through tenure and extended contact: "If you get to know someone for a school year, it's considered your friend, you could tell them secrets. The first day of school when you go into a new class, if you see somebody who you think would be nice, you can't start telling them all your secrets." Tweens also suggested that they kept their IB separate from parents and other adults, as the following tween explained: "My dad, he's always trying to get into my life like 'What happened at school' If my sister and I are talking about who we like and stuff, my dad's like, 'Oh, who's this person' Like he's gonna get into our lives."