South African teens can’t live without their Bible
A recent study provided some surprising insights into the sorts of things that young people value. The report was commissioned by the Sunday Times and carried out by HDI Youth Marketeers.
Note: See my post at Kanyimbe for more links to the study.
Below is a graph I created based on the data just for teens for the section on “What You Can’t Live Without”:
We could spend a lot of time deconstructing this data. For example, “parents” rate lower than “cell phone.” But the top score goes to “Family.” So there’s some fuzziness in these results. But if we broadly look at what answers make up the top ten there are some interesting results:
- Family
- Cell phone
- Money
- Parents
- MXit
- Friends
- School
- Music
- Bible
- Love
I find the “Bible” answer to be a surprise. It ranks higher than “Love” even! Those who distribute Bibles in South Africa should consider following up this survey and trying to find out why “Bible” ranked so highly and in what way exactly do teens feel they “can’t live without it.”
Another thing to consider is how Bibles might be distributed using some of the other items on this list. Bible Society of South Africa already distributes the Bible in a format for cell phones. But MXit is far more pervasive than a Java App format and also far more inculcated in the day-to-day experience of South African teens. A Bible “channel” similar to Yoza on MXit if handled correctly could in fact be a big hit for those who are looking for answers to managing the other things on their list, i.e. money, love, and school. A Horoscope contact is already available and might offer a good model to follow.
