Get the full article and more on http://www.mobileyouth.org We’re being hoodwinked by the media and research industry but here’s the reality: - Youth aren’t addicted to digital - People aren’t motivated by online - What motivates is what happens offline If you want to understand behavior, focus on motivations not technology.

1. 3 Reasons why Offline is
more important than Online
Why we need to hit re-set
One thing I’ve learned writing for the Social Customer Project is that there is a lot noise out there.
The noise focuses on the shiny stuff that makes the headlines: millennials living online, youth
“addiction” to digital etc.
We’re being hoodwinked by the media and research industry but here’s the reality:
• Youth aren’t addicted to digital
• People aren’t motivated by online
• What motivates is what happens offline
If you want to understand behavior, focus on motivations not technology.
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2. I’d like to hit the reset button and refocus on what matters most. But, unfortunately, it’s not the
things that come cheap and easy like 1 million FacebookFans. It’s the hard work that happens
offline, and that’s why it matters. We can’t fake it.
The curious case of the boy under house arrest
A 19 year old from Whangarei, a University town in New Zealand, recently made the news by
breaking conditions of his house arrest.
With only 1 month left in his 11 month confinement, the unnamed teen claimed he had “run out
games to play on his Xbox”.
Xbox: taking into the cloud doesn’t make it more social
“I’ve had enough of life online,now come and arrest me”
For 10 months he played Xbox online with friends but the real world loneliness was too much to
bear. Under the conditions of house arrest, he had few restrictions on his activity, except one critical
aspect – he wasn’t allowed to leave the house.
He picked up the phone and asked the local police to send him to prison instead. He’d rather be
together with strangers in prison than at home alone.
Microsoft’s Drive to Online – it’s sharing, Jim, but not as
we know it
At the same time, Microsoft was scaling up for its Christmas launch of the new Xbox One.
According to Microsoft the new Xbox would be “more shareable than ever”. Xbox One would
allow games to be shared with up to 10 online friends. But, fans soon discovered, the devil was in
the detail: sharing came with significant caveats.
• To share with a friend online, the friend had to be registered as a friend on your Xbox
network for 30 days with MS
• You can’t play the game offline
• You can’t play together at the same time with shared friends
Why do Fans want real sharing?
When Microsoft launched Xbox One at E3 earlier in the year they shared a vision of gaming “in the
cloud”. While taking gaming online may add to the experience, what fans took issue with was the
erosion of the basic things that made the experience real e.g:
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3. • Sharing the physical disk with friends or family
• The whole of ritual of shopping in the used game market
• Playing games together on the same couch
Give us back our offline sharing!
Responding to fan anger, Xbox spokesperson Major Nelson said Microsoft were unable to go back
on their cloud gaming strategy on which they had bet the future of their console. “It’s not easy as
flipping a switch”.
4 days later, following poor Christmas pre-sales compared to rival PS4, Microsoft annouced a major
U-turn in strategy. The damage, however, had already been done.
What Microsoft, and many tech companies, forget is that relationships don’t exist in the cloud but
very much offline in the analog world. It’s easy to get seduced by the promise of online technology,
but technology is only meaningful when it adds to offline experience.
Microsoft dreamed of Xbox One but the people woke up getting “Xbox for One”.
3 Reasons why offline > online
1) We are designed to interact offline.
Don’t be fooled by the pretense of ideas like the “digital native”.
Our biology is hundreds of thousands of years old. Online is a tiny fraction of our evolutionary
history. Scientists have shown that while communicating with friends and family can feel like
you’re maintaining a relationship, stress levels only fall when subjects were in the same physical
space.
2) Offline is the moment of truth.
Brands can’t fake offline.
We can make better judgements about people in the real world. Trust levels in the offline world are
significantly higher than those online. We read body language and develop trust through offline
interaction. In a world where everyone has the ability to touch our lives through digital, we
increasingly rely on those we trust to disseminate and discern information from the noise. You can
invest millions in online marketing but if your offline touch points suck, you’re flushing your
budget down the pan.
3) Most of our behaviors are redeemed offline.
Online can facilitate social behavior but not give it meaning.
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4. All meaning is offline. We shop together, share music, play games in close proximity. Online can
never replace an evening with friends, holding hands with a loved one or a music concert. These
behaviors are too ingrained into our culture and psyche to replace.
What really counts is offline. Without offline connection, people will do crazy things like go to jail.
Online connection can help but never cure offline isolation.
Make sure you are part of the solution not the problem.
Next Steps
• Make change: Social Business is a movement. The more people who “get it” the more
leverage we have to change business for the better. Share this article with friends and
colleagues using the social media buttons.
• Get your colleagues on board: In marketing, selling to customers is easy – very easy.
Selling to your own organization, however, is the biggest challenge. Create change, bang the
drum and get your colleagues onto this newsletter by sending them this link.
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