What do you think is the most common method of communication among the youth today?
SMS’, Mobile phone calls, Facebook messages, Orkut scraps, MMSs, Voice mails all are losing out to a mode which does not even figure on the list.
How does one contact the friend who’s inside his house when you are standing outside but you don’t want to waste a call on it as well? Yes, you guessed right, you give him a missed call. This highly popular mode of communication now figures among one of the constants of teenage life. How do you know if your girlfriend’s dad is around or not? You give her a missed call and if she gives you one back, it’s safe! This is a foolproof method as it eliminates risk and at the same time is pocket friendly.
How else is it used? There are much better examples as well. What do you do when your money runs out and you need back up? There is only one eternal saviour at all those times (and if you are at college, those times do come, often!!). That individual is called Dad! And how do you contact him? Of course, you give him a missed call and he will call you back, as is his duty to. Almost the whole lot of students at university never ever call home. They always give missed calls and the poor folks at home have to call back.
This rapidly increasing segment of the mobile using population has users among the senior population as well. Grandpas and Grandmas are also giving missed calls to their middle aged wards to get them to call back. And if you think that’s all you are gravely mistaken. How do you get your friend in the other row to look at you when you want to share a private joke about the professor? You give him a missed call and he will promptly turn and look at you.
These are just a few examples of how a simple thing such as a missed call influences the life of a teenager (and a wider diaspora as well). There may be other instances where the missed call is used and of which we might have no idea at all.
If such is the situation, how do we know what a teenager thinks, what he might use at what stage and what he might shun? What is evident from such phenomenon is that a one size fits all just doesn’t work across all parts of the population.
Therein lays the challenge for the researcher!
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Sairam Krishnan
krea: An India-centric Online research firm with a focus on Healthcare, Youth and Mobile.
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