Aim higher, reach farther.

How to Use Tech Like a Teenager

They May Be Young, but They Have Wise Tips on Privacy, Photos and Life With Less Email

Personal Technology Columnist Geoffrey Fowler speaks with Pew Research Center's Amanda Lenhart about why teens use phones and laptops the way they do, and what adults can learn from them. (Photo: Getty Images)

Enough with complaining that young people these days are addicted to their phones. The question you should be asking is: What do they know that you don't?

Believe it or not, there are advantages to using technology like a teen. I asked a handful of 11- to 17-year-olds to tell me what apps and gear they couldn't live without. They taught me to question my own habits: Why do I use email to talk with friends? Why do I only share my best photos?

Teens are among the most creative users of technology, in part because they don't have adults' assumptions about how things are supposed to work.

"I will just throw away the directions and see what I can make of it," Kapp Singer, a 14-year-old from San Francisco, told me.

Owning a smartphone, often a hand-me-down, means many teens can be pretty much always online, changing how they stay in touch with friends and express themselves.

Snapchat, the photo-messaging app in which images disappear after a few seconds, often puzzles adults who think of photos as formal, even permanent. But teens love it because of what can be said with instant pictures, especially disposable ones.

I'm not suggesting that everyone should immediately use Snapchat, but what if you tried it?

I did for a week, with my good-natured septuagenarian parents. After some trial and error, they were sending me "snaps": my dad struggling to pack a suitcase, my mom making funny faces. I shared a snap of tomatoes starting to grow in my garden.

My mom didn't like how quickly snaps disappeared. (A tip for Snapchatting moms: Press an iPhone's home and power buttons at the same time to save a screenshot of the snap.) But my dad thought it would be a good way to keep up with children and grandchildren. The ability to communicate with my parents in snippets meant I could keep up with them even when I didn't have time to call or write.

The experience mostly taught us we should share a lot more photos. The snaps we send aren't "important," but sharing those moments brings us closer together.

We can't just think of young people as future adults. Some of their habits are borne of uniquely teen circumstances, like not having a car. Yet from my conversations with them—and the social scientists who study them like a foreign culture—I found five practices that could change how you use technology.

Ditch Email
Scotty Reifsnyder

Only 6% of teens exchange email daily, according to the Pew Research Center. They reserve email for official communications, or venues like school where alternatives are banned.

"Email is just where all the college applications go," says Ryan Orbuch, a 17-year-old from Boulder, Colo. (The only thing he finds more laborious is email's even more antiquated cousin, voice mail.)

Instead, he uses a fragmented set of messaging apps based on the people he wants to communicate with. For example, he uses Snapchat for one-on-one conversations, Facebook FB -0.23 % Messenger to chat with groups and Twitter TWTR 0.11 % to keep up with people he's never met in person.

For teens and adults alike, a message app is only as good as the network of people you can reach with it. The lesson for adults is that these newer tools, including apps like Apple's AAPL -0.19 % iMessage, WhatsApp and Kik, drop the cumbersome formalities of email. There's no "Dear," no "Best Regards."

These apps also do a better job at managing conversations: Facebook Messenger lets you excuse yourself from irrelevant conversations, for instance.

There's also value in not having every single message stored on an email server. The idea is to just enable a regular conversation. "If someone was recording us as we were walking down the street, that would be weird—not because we have something to hide," Ryan says.

Express Yourself Through Images
Scotty Reifsnyder

Today, 91% of teens post a photo of themselves on social media sites, according to Pew. Photos and short videos shared on Instagram or Vine can capture a funny moment, or say something that might offend (or anger parents) if it were written out.

The lesson for adults is that you can express things in images that would be time-consuming to write out, or read. "I couldn't scan 50 people's posts and texts as quickly as I could 50 people's posts on Instagram," says Kapp, the San Francisco 14-year-old.

But who wants to see all of these images? Oversharing can annoy teens, too. Instagram and other photo apps are actually an antidote: Instead of filling everyone's inbox, people share an image widely, while viewers choose whom they want to "follow." If people have too much to say, you can simply unfollow or mute them.

And don't just limit yourself to photos. Colorful hieroglyphics called "emoji" are available for the iPhone and Android keyboards, and many people use them to highlight messages. If those are too tiny, try the cartoonlike "stickers" found on Facebook, Kik, WeChat and other messaging services. Feeling frustrated? Send a sticker of a dog chasing its own tail.

Hide in Plain Sight
Scotty Reifsnyder

Adults assume that young people don't care about privacy. But look closer: Some 58% of teen social-media users say they cloak their messages, according to Pew, using inscrutable pictures and unexplained jokes to communicate in code.

"Teenagers are growing up in a world where they assume surveillance," says Danah Boyd, author of "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens."

Natalie Jaffe, a 17-year-old from Pittsburgh, says she adjusts what she shares based on who may be able to see it. "I just make sure what I post is appropriate," she says, knowing that her 600 Instagram followers include both friends and parents.

The lesson: You can be "public" without having embarrassing things on the permanent record.

This could involve carefully managing the flow of information, through using disappearing-message apps or Facebook audience-privacy controls. It could also mean posting publicly about something without specifically naming it, known as subtweeting.

But take it from a teen: Subtweets can backfire. "That can always cause drama or confusion," Natalie warns.

Find Your Own Server
Scotty Reifsnyder

The Internet is a big public square. But it also has neighborhoods where you gather with friends and just hang out.

That's one reason playing the online game Minecraft has caught on like wildfire among teens, particularly with middle schoolers who have limited ability to gather on their own in the real world. Minecraft is like a gargantuan virtual Lego set you can work on together, without having to go to anyone's house.

After school, San Francisco 11-year-old Traylor Smith-Wallis logs into Minecraft and a group Skype chat with as many as 18 buddies.

When they gather online, it's often on a server Traylor or one of his friends runs—that is to say, creep-free. "It's our virtual world, and you can make it whatever you want," he says. (His parents usually listen in the background, he adds, just in case one of his friends curses.)

The Internet has long had equivalents to Minecraft servers for niche communities. Even in the age of social networks, adults often form groups or discussion boards for their neighborhoods, hobbies or health interests.

Throw Away the User Manual
Scotty Reifsnyder

The reason teens are such avid early adopters isn't that they have an innate knowledge of tech—it's that they aren't afraid to break it.

Teens think, "How can I test and experiment and bend this thing to my will, and make it do what I want?" says Pew Research Center's Amanda Lenhart, who studies how youths use tech.

(Of course, there are also adults with this mind-set. They're called hackers, and some of them are billionaires.)

Sometimes, they'll even invent new uses. Teen users of Venmo, an app for exchanging small amounts of money, have begun to pay friends $1 or another token amount, just to say "thanks" or "high-five." It's like a Like button with monetary value. Part of the reason may be that Venmo makes transactions public, though not the amounts.

The lesson: Experimentation is just as important as instructions, and don't despair if you don't have instant competence. Talk about new technology with your friends.

And when all else fails, flag down a teenager—you'd be surprised what you can learn.

—Write to Geoffrey A. Fowler at and @geoffreyfowler on Twitter.

Hope Hare
Hope Hare subscriber

How nice for the kids. Fun, they are having it. Though, pictographs are not, as you might say, new--our ancestors started using them in the stone age, and since then, humans have developed much more subtle ways of communicating. Language is so powerful, and can entertain us even if it's only a story about what we saw on the subway last night. No amount of smiley faces is going to make me smile back the way a beautifully written sentence does. 

My teens are long since grown up into adults, but they continue to inform me about new technology. Some of it useful, some not. 

David Henry
David Henry user

The article could have been shortened just to say, kids friendships are based on what apps they use.  Not what music they listen to or sports they play which may have been the case in the past.

Also, at first I felt belittled where the article repeatedly states 'we' have a lot to learn from kids.  But I guess 99% of people my age do.  I feel like I understand technology just fine, but it's nearly impossible to find other people my age who care about new software technology.

KIRK THRASHER subscriber

I'm posting this using a computer I built myself, so I'm at least somewhat tech-savvy.  However I can't keep up with all these social-media inventions.  It's all just too much.

Sara Baker
Sara Baker subscriber

Smart phones and social media - the opiate of the masses. Keeps em stupid and vapid and primed to be a low info voter - dude.

Sam Kumar
Sam Kumar user

Teens and real men don't read manuals.

And code is the best documentation.

Curtis Beck
Curtis Beck subscriber

They won't share what they know...they just look at you like you're some kind of dinosaur.

Charlie Wall
Charlie Wall subscriber

It sounds like cool teenage fun.  I suppose SnapChat saves you the effort of deleting a photo because to disappears on its own. Otherwise, I don't quite get how that makes it faster or easier than texting.  It actually makes it less useful because the receiver doesn't have the option to save a photo he may want. 

We have a generation of teens who do not appreciate privacy, or even know what it is.  They are compelled to take a picture or everything, and disclose every unimportant moment of their lives.  Teens aren't exactly equipped with the best judgment. I think in a decade social media will be used less frivolously aftersome hard lessons are learned. 

Samuel Hobbs
Samuel Hobbs user

Older Generation to Younger Generation: "All these new ways of behaving are ruining your thinking. You're not going to have developed the same skills, learned the same things, or appreciate the same values. You'll be worse off for it, I'll warn you!"

[Rewind 50 years.]


[Rewind 50 years.]


[And so forth.]

Ezra Blumenthal
Ezra Blumenthal user

1) Use the word 'Awesome' to describe everything.

2) LOL, Mega LOL, ... or make some up and look cooler. 

3) Have a short attention span. Don't think too hard. 

4) Be stupid and shallow. 

That should sum up how teenagers use technology today :)


This article completely misses the point most teen communications has no more value than any chatter that goes on between classes. It is a way of socializing which has its value but not much as a lesson for adult communications unless you are in the business of creating apps for teens. Not a bad business to be in.

David Ecale
David Ecale user

"Today, 91% of teens post a photo of themselves on social media sites, according to Pew."

Didn't I just see an article in the WSJ a few days ago that the NSA was now doing image & name matching for its database of Internet users? Which begs the question: Wouldn't this be an OOPS! moment?

Susan Corwin
Susan Corwin subscriber

It is very true that if:
    a. you have a lot of time on your hands

    b. you have nothing important do to,

    c. you have no more important goals or contribution to make

then social media is a great time sink.

We each have a finite amount of processing resource to use on "living".

If "living" is keeping up on the "tribe",
    then this is all great stuff.

If "living" is inventing the future:
    filing patents, producing product, authoring valuable prose,
then searching for the "end of the internet", posting "me! me! me!" pictures and really silly non-insights is an excellent way to waste time and feed one's ego.

Patricia Sears
Patricia Sears user

 I'm 54, active on social media,  and I found this an interesting useful article.  If you're sneering and dismissive of today's teens, that's probably why they don't want to communicate with you. 

Marvin Mulligan
Marvin Mulligan subscriber

 The statement: "The ability to communicate with my parents in snippets meant I could keep up with them even when I didn't have time to call or write." at it's core is saying, it was not important to call or write my parents. If you only broadcast, you will not develop listening skills.

Joseph Biron
Joseph Biron subscriber

How many of these texting teens are engaged in world class software development projects, or managing investments, or architecting bridges and roadways, or essentially doing any of the things that we boring, crusty, antiquated adults do?

Find me those teens and show me how they go about their day. I'm certain it will be different than the typical Orange Leaf frequenting mall zombie.

Theodore J. Harvatin
Theodore J. Harvatin subscriber

My soon to be 17 year old son (he lives with his mother) never makes or answers a phone call, hardly uses email, does not have a Facebook account and we communicate mainly by text. By observing him communicating with me, I have learned--or relearned-the power of show-and-tell and that a picture tells 1,000 words.

Helen Corey
Helen Corey subscriber

I'm going to ask my grandkids to translate this article for me.......if I can.

Richard Lane
Richard Lane subscriber

This article needs to be in the tabloids not the WSJ or maybe the WSJ is becoming a tabloid!!

Edward Fotsch
Edward Fotsch user

Email is the communication means of the working class.  Texting... 'not so much.  And from the looks of the photo these teens should spend a little more time getting some exercise

John Cole
John Cole subscriber

What the teens really have over most adults (except us hackers) is lack of fear.  They don't care if they make a mistake or break something.  They figure they can just pick up the pieces and try something else, and they're generally right.  Lesson to adults: If you want to learn the technology, get over your fear.

What I see, though, is that teens are good users of technology but very few of them are good developers of it.  That takes more patience than most of them have.  Of course there are exceptions.  Lesson to teens: Spend focused time exploring the apps and the devices on which they run.

Arthur O'Connor
Arthur O'Connor subscriber

Social media is really just another form of email (a system for transferring messages from one computer to another, usually via a network - Wiktionary). Why have multiple email accounts when one will do? Perhaps today's teens do not know how to create email groups. Also, it is the herd mentality. If others, who are perceived as "cool" are doing it, you need to do it too or you will be "left out". Today's teens seem to have no problem giving up their personal information and allowing marketing outfits to track their every move just to be part of the herd. Sad that our youths have turned into lemmings.

Kirth Gersen
Kirth Gersen subscriber

" ... Only 6% of teens exchange email daily,...

Instead, he uses a fragmented set of messaging apps based on the people he wants to communicate with...."


That's because 95% of what they "communicate" is just "Yo! Wassup?" or some equally inane or vapid comment.

James Merlotti
James Merlotti subscriber

good article - but assume any messaging service can save data for as long as needed by a subpoena.... 

David Ecale
David Ecale user

@KIRK THRASHER  Depending on its age, I can supply you with a giant box of replacement parts: NICs; Modems; Slot1 P4 CPUs; Various Graphics Cards; PCMCIA Adaptors; & Memory. I smashed the HDDs with a hammer.

I converted the Pii Slot1 CPUs (Heat sink attached) to letter holders.

Oh! And, I just ignore all of the Social Media stuff. It changes every year, or so, anyway. Remember MySpace?

Samuel Hobbs
Samuel Hobbs user

@Richard Lane Yesterday I received some sage advice from a veteran founder of a successful public accounting firm with 41 years of experience: "Don't take life so seriously."

Articles like this have always run in the WSJ. It's okay. You're okay. We're okay.

Joseph Biron
Joseph Biron subscriber

@John Cole I don't think anyone finds texting scary. Is it lack of fear, or an insatiable desire to express their social animal instincts?

Show More Archives

Popular on WSJ

Editors’ Picks