To better understand how user behavior is evolving, Avenue A | Razorfish conducted in-depth interviews with 25 people between the ages of 18 and 34 who exhibit a high propensity for using a variety of digital platforms. We call this segment of the population the Connected Class and believe they represent a bellwether for predicting digital behavior.
The proliferation of the digital you What do we mean by the digital you? Much has been written about consumer empowerment, the power of self-expression, digital conversation, user-generated content (UGC), and the rise of social behavior. Indeed, Time magazine made “You” their Person of the Year over a year ago. The digital you is how you express your individuality using all of these channels But in our research, we found connected users are beginning to do more to build their digital you than we could have imagined. They aren’t just using the new technology, social, and communication platforms—they’re using them to express different sides of themselves in both obvious and nuanced ways. People have always shown different sides of themselves—the person you are at work is perhaps different from the one that rides a Harley-Davidson on weekends. The punk rock fan may never have dropped into a half pipe. But today, digital platforms are rapidly perpetuating the phenomenon of the multi-dimensional self. Users are leveraging every digital tool at their disposal to show these different sides of themselves—who they are, where they fit, what they think, and what they think of others—and the digital context plays a critical part in determining which part of themselves they show. They display these different aspects of their personalities through the devices they use, games they play, and conversations they have. And while that may sound merely interesting, we believe it has significant implications for both marketers and communicators in 2008 and beyond.