So lately I’ve been seeing a slew of articles floating around the twittersphere about whether or not teens tweet. Here are just  few of the many:
Do teens hate Twitter?, Teens don’t tweet… or do they?, Why Teens Don’t Tweet, Are teens the driving force behind Twitter?, & Why Do Teens Shun Twitter?

Now I could go on and on about my personal opinions on who I think is right, but that’s not what this entry is all about.  From all the chatter around these articles it obvious that the general population is unaware of how much bias there is in survey data collection. In fact if you can find me a completely unbiased survey- I will buy you a pony. Yes, I will buy you a brand new pony.  All. For. You.

To understand why it’s impossible to prevent some type of skewed result, I probably should explain what types of things create measurement bias & affect survey results. For example,  a user can be feel pressured the give the response the surveyor wants to hear, that’s a response bias.  Additionally, many  surveys rely  only on the population that chooses to respond, which leads to voluntary bias & sometimes because certain groups of people choose not to respond it leads to under coverage bias.  Plus all those people who choose not to respond to the survey can create a non-response bias. If you want a more in-depth look at these bias..  click here

Now back to the whole teens twittering debacle. Why are so many of these studies have conflicting results? Well, it’s that bias beast I just outlined. Since you can’t force anyone to take a survey and it’s difficult to create a representative sample of the Internet population, it’s likely one or more of the previously mentioned bias are dramatically impacting the results in each survey. So in some case the results show teens are twittering.  In other it shows they’re not. And in some there’s not clear results. It doesn’t matter how big the name is of the company who preformed the study, there’’s likely to be some type of flaw to point out.  Why do you think Neilsen’s in such hot water for how they measure TV? It’s the harsh realities of survey measurement.

So at the end of the day until companies find a method other than self report to determine a twitterer’s age, you’re going to have to take everything you read with a grain of salt.  It’s the facts of life,  and the facts of survey data.

Let’s face it. I work in a a career that is predominately run by men. Sure, there are a good number of women that work in technology-related careers, but how many CTOs do you know that are women? The number is small. I wanted to add “surprisingly” to that  small, but I couldn’t. It’s an obvious fact. Women just aren’t as visible in this scene.  So, how do we change that?  We can’t bribe girls to take the career. If they’re driven by money they’ll probably rather marry a rich man who’s on his death bed, then take advanced science courses. Being serious, the logical solution is making technology appealing to girls at a young age, so that they will be encouraged to pursue a career in it later in life.

According to a study done by the AAUW, i stereotypes about appropriate careers for girls, a lack of female role models and the absence of basic career information dampened girls’ interest in technology-related careers. (1998) So how do we remedy this? One women is coming forward with a rather interesting solution.

Diana Eng a self proclaimed fashion geek, and former project runway contestant, has come up with a pretty remarkable way to blend the typical girl infused world of fashion with the futuristic world of technology. Enter fairytalefashion.org.

“Fairytale Fashion is a program that combines fairytales and fashion to introduce young girls to technology.  Girls will be asked to make-believe they are fashion designers in a fairytale and imagine what magical fashions they would create. These may be fashions that change color, transform, have blooming flowers and moving patterns. The magical fashion design ideas will be evaluated and created in real life using technology such as muscle wire, inflatables, thermochromatic ink, microcontrollers, conductive thread and 3-d printing. The working fairytale fashions and the technology behind them will be documented on the FairytaleFashion.com website to show girls how technology can be used to make make-believe a reality. “

I had the pleasure of attending the launch of the program where the first of such “fairytale designs” was previewed. The dress below is much cooler than it looks, as I failed to capture much of its magic with my camera lens. The bodice is littered with flashing lights, the bottom of the dress inflates ( with no power cord dragging!), and the “cape” is headed up by large bulbous LED finishings. It was literally a fairytale come true to the 3, 11 year old girls that designed it.

If you have a daughter who would love to have their fairytale fashion become reality you can submit their idea to Diana.She will be selecting several girls to have their own fashion impossibilities become reality with the help of modern advanced technology.

Today I was bumbling through my new followers for the day on twitter and attempting to return the favor to those who appeared not  to be spammers. I noted to myself that my follwers  list was inundated with screenames such as   “sexxyblond4fun” , “brtnyffedvids”  & “cheapslutontwitter”.  Each was accompanied with an equally as  scandalous avatar of a girl giving her best “i’m sooo naughty ” face.  After seeing bikini after bikini as I cleaned out my account,  it hit me.  Spammers are sexist.

How come I don’t have any spammers following me with names like “nakedbradpitt” or “sexyboytoy”.  Why isn’t my followers list filled with attractive men with their shirts off and wearing a “come hither” look? If men get to look at hot,  sassy & supposedly desperate for clicks women such as this,   I want the same.

I want abs. I want oiled pecks. I want boyish looks. I want no shirts. Is that too much to ask?  Heck, I might even be persuaded to click one of those spam links. I mean Brad Pitt can make me do things I would, in normal life,  never ever do.

Call me shallow, but every girl I know wouldn’t mind if an attractive man followed them around even if it was virtually. The way I see it,  you spammers are really ignoring us females.  You’s be suprised what a hot male avatar might be able to get us to do.