Teenage kicks.

My 14 year old daughter is now the proud, and perpetually preoccupied, owner of a BlackBerry (NB big mistake).

It offers six amazing ways for her to keep in touch with her friends simultaneously and continuously.  Seven if you include an actual phone call.  (The others are: BlackBerry Messenger, Twitter, Text, Facebook, some kind of IM app and email.)

With so many vitally important teenage social happenings to keep abreast of around the clock, she fixes her gaze intently into the screen for most of her waking life, her thumbs doing the talking.

Lawd only knows what could be so pressing.  But she has to have the thing prised from her grasp to eat, sleep, or bathe.  She already, rather worryingly, calls it her "CrackBerry."

"Why don't you put the phone down and watch some TV instead?" I suggested the other day.  Oh, the irony.

"I'm good!" she chirped, hastily updating her status.

Now, we have a very flat, fairly large TV in the corner of the room.  It offers a selection of around 100 perfectly decent television channels, many apparently targeted at her age group.  But can I get her to watch it?  Not a chance.  Her social dashboard is her connection to the outside world and all consuming media passion.  It is her LIFE.

Point being?  Well, we've all sat in planning meetings debating the right media mix to reach younger target audiences.  But if my young'un is typical we're all doomed.

TV?  She "tapes' the shows she likes and skips the ads.  Radio?  Spotify Premium.  Press?  A cursory 5 minute flick through the occasional style or gossip mag.  Outdoor?  Not possible to focus on a 48 sheet when your face is three inches from a smartphone.

So, surely the best way to reach them must be through their beloved social media?  Not according to my representative sample of one:

"What do you think of the ads on Facebook darling?"
 

"There are ads on Facebook?"
 

Now contrast all this with the barely contained delight with which she received and consumed the personalised welcome pack for her new bank account last week.

Maybe there's life in the old DM dog yet......