A gift from Brenda Laurel has cost me dear. The eminent design professor at Art Center, in California, sent me a copy of a new report called ‘Tweens: Technology, Personal Agency, Engagement’. The result of a year-long research project sponsored by HP, the book is an intriguing portrait of Californian tweens (ages 11-14): How they think, feel. act, and relate to each other and the world. One of the researchers responds: ‘the tweens research has made me ponder the nature of why kids are becoming more consumer conscious at an earlier age’. The book does not address the questions: Who owns information about these young adults’ lives? Are we comfortable, as design researchers, making such intimate insights available to a big tech company? I would have pontificated further on these weighty issues had not a more imnportant one distracted me. A knowing 12-year-old is quoted saying that ‘only losers wear striped shirts’. So I now have to find a loser to give about seven of mine to.
