Why you should invite teens into your research

Entitled? Flaky? Economically dependent? Phone addicts?...

It can be easy to assume we already know all about teenagers. But 12.18 at The Nursery (our youth division dedicated to research with teens age 12-18) want to challenge assumptions and give a fresh perspective on an audience we love working with.

So when the MRS invited us to speak at their &More conference, we felt this was the perfect opportunity to share our experiences with a wider audience. One of the founding principles of 12.18 is to encourage people to see the role of teenagers beyond the obvious and to invite them into research and decision making.

At The Nursery, we see teens as a trusted lens to the future who are honest, creative, critical and full of ideas. They are a hugely influential audience, impacting generations that come before and after them. They provide us and our clients with a fresh point of view and open our minds to different perspectives.

So armed with this standpoint, earlier this month The 12.18 team took to the virtual stage to present at the &More Conference. We were first up on the agenda with our panel discussion on the roles of teens in research. Alongside my Nursery partners Ella, Razia and Zuzanna, we covered a range of our experiences of our work with teens across both qual and quant.

We discussed the current generation of teenagers, their behaviours and attitudes which have all been informed by the world they have grown up in. Tech and social media advances, political instability, Brexit and Covid all shaping this. We highlighted how these influences can impact them as respondents too and we shared how we design research methods with this in mind to ensure teens feel comfortable and open to share with us.

One of our biggest takeaways was that despite new modern pressures, teens really aren’t that different to us as adults. Lots of feelings and experiences are still the same even if they show up differently in 2024!

We rounded out the session by providing some top tips and advice when conducting research to welcome teenagers in.

This included:

• Adapting to your teenage audience and being mindful of entering their world rather than forcing them to enter the research one.
• Making them feel at ease by creating an environment of mutual respect.
• And finally adapting our methodologies to the skills and needs of your audience.

In summary, we encourage you to think outside the box when it comes to your audience and consider what role teens play for you now as well as in the long term. Invite them into your research for a wider, future focused view as well an honest critical one.

At The Nursery, we see teens as trusted influencers that help us inform our decision making and you can too!

If you want to find out more about research with teenagers and our approach, get in touch us with the 12.18 team at hello@the-nursery.net or see our 12.18 page.