# 15-year-old media experts, twitter and intelligent filters

A research note written by a 15-year-old Morgan Stanley intern on the media habits of his generation made it to the front page of the Financial Times this week sparking various headlines including ‘[Twitter is not for teens, Morgan Stanley told by 15-year-old expert’](http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/13/twitter-teenage-media-habits) and ‘[Teenage media habits: was the whiz-kid correct?](http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jul/14/teenage-media-habits-twitter)’.

Apart from various other teenagers being poked and prodded by journalists to give their analysis of teen-media Jenna McWilliams at the Guardian asked “*Why is one 15-year-old's middling analysis of teen media use being interpreted as the new bible of social media?”.*

Her answer:

> The answer is simple. We're lost in a forest, and we're looking for a guide to lead us out. We live in a world where knowledge is abundant and access is near-ubiquitous. What's scarce is the ability to sift through the information, to extract, synthesise and circulate key ideas to a public that's starving for someone to serve as an intelligent filter. [Lost in the new media universe](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jul/14/twitter-teenage-media-habits) - guardian.co.uk

Hopefully MASHe is serving as ‘an intelligent filter’ (although by highlighting the ‘middling analysis’ of a teenager I’m probably setting myself up for a fall – the [full copy of the research note is here](http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/13/teenage-media-habits-morgan-stanley)).