Young people take the Internet for granted but most don’t understand how it works. It’s the primary place where young people form beliefs about the world and gives them unprecedented access to learning, knowledge and information. But it also bombards them with equally large amounts of propaganda, user-generated nonsense, conspiracy theories and misinformation. Separating the wheat from the chaff is difficult – new survey data shows just how bad young people in the UK are at doing this. More 16-24 year olds trust the net than newspapers; 43% of them base their trust in web content on ‘how the site looks’, while 32% of 12-15 year olds believe that Google search results are listed in order of accuracy. “Online, image really is everything. Young people are swimming in a sea of information and misinformation but they don’t make the same judgment calls that older generations do,” says Jamie Bartlett, head of the violence and extremism programme at Demos. “It’s hard to claim there is such a thing as ‘informed choice’ anymore as there’s just too much information. In a world where conspiracy theories are as trusted national newspapers, building a narrative that can claim to be the ‘truth’ will be the ultimate goal.”

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Our attention spans didn’t die they just changed shape, according to new thinking from social media guru Matt Locke at Channel 4. The Cassandras who predicted that media fragmentation and marathon idiot-fests like X Factor would lead to continuous partial attention, soundbite-size attention spans and our brains eventually sliding out our ears, were wrong. Instead Matt has identified several new attention shapes evolving from the new ways we consume media. These include ‘Cult shapes’ – the result of box-set binging; ‘Asynchronous shapes’ – bitesize content grazing such as Facebook game Farmville; and ‘Live shapes’ – big, live event viewing on TV such as X factor. Working with these shapes opens up new ways for brands to engage consumers. For big event viewing many people split their attention across two screens to connect to other viewers. Posting Twitter comments about Cher Lloyd’s face whilst watching X Factor on TV for example. Rather than a sign of reduced attention quality, this offers exciting opportunities in the form of second screen – designing interactive elements to sit alongside a TV show. Last month’s Million Pound Drop on BBC saw a 200% increase in viewers playing along at home compared to series 1. Second screen is the shape of things to come.

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The Crimson Blood Wolf Pack is a furry-tail-wearing, mall-cruising gang of teenage girls from Texas. The girls have banded together around an Alpha Female they call Wolfie, 18-year-old Sara Rodriguez who claims to be part wolf. Discovered and captured on film by photographer Danielle Levitt, the gang hit the local headlines this year when their leader, Wolfie, was accused of killing and beheading a dog after photographs appeared online. Whilst she explains in this video that the dog had already died and she was merely removing its skull (!?) at a friend’s behest, Wolfie has since gained a cult teen following of self-declared werewolves and ardent fans. “I’ve had people come ask me for autographs or to take pictures or just beg to hug me, stuff like that,” Wolfie says. “And I don’t mind it, you can come up and hug me.” The story of the gang has been released this week in chapters by Dazed & Confused, and the footage is seriously compelling. Perhaps what’s most interesting is that this isn’t teenage rebellion against rules and authority, but about kids looking to each other for a sense of order and mothering. Photographer Levitt says, “The Crimson Wolf Pack functions as a family, they look to her (Woolfie) for guidance, and she tirelessly supports, mothers and leads. The kids in the pack need her, as she needs them, for they are sorts of outsiders and don’t necessarily feel like they fit in normative worlds.” Surely every shopping centre could use its own pack of “Mall wolves”?

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Tags. To many they’re seen as the lowest form of graffiti, artless and mindless vandalism. But to writers tags are so much more. They’re the core of who a writer is – what their name is, where they’re from, what their style is, what crew they represent. Unreadable to most observers, they are loaded with information for other writers. Ironic then that what once existed as an esoteric flag decipherable only to the initiated has a namesake that has democratised graffiti and moved it from dark streets and train yards to homes all across the world. Online tags on sites such as Flickr has completely changed the face of graffiti. Before the internet, respect and fame in graff was garnered through being ‘up’ (having your tags or pieces all over the place, making them unmissable), which involved lots of long nights walking the streets and train tracks. But it’s now possible for writers to take their work directly to people by tagging it on any number of websites. Less legwork, less risk and a bigger audience. A name in graff can now be made practically overnight with relatively little effort on the part of the writer. Although this technology has taken graffiti to new audiences and made some writers well known names, the hardcore graff community remains sceptical. Truly respected names are built the old-fashioned way – by putting the work in.

Arguably, the next Diaghilev won’t be the impresario of a physical space but the commissioner, curator and catalyst of new content for sharing virtually, created with the full potential of the web in mind. A recent report by Cisco predicts that by 2014, the internet will be four times larger than it is today. Meaning it would take over two years to watch the amount of video that will cross global IP networks every second. With those volumes of video content, we’ll need content curators for the social web. Some of the most interesting arts content of late has been at the intersection of the real and social worlds. Like Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra’s Concert for the people, which brought together an orchestra and an audience spread out across Hamburg, via social media and live streaming. Or Twitteropera, whose libretto was written collaboratively by audience tweets and performed live simultaneously (it wasn’t that great, but…). We’ll see whether these impresarios will be entrepreneurial, super-connected individuals; social media owners with the capacity of Foursquare to connect people and places; cultural organisations that create the content people most want to see; or brands that have the finances to fund it.

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His master’s #shamelesslywhoring on Twitter not withstanding, if you’re not already dabbling in The Fry Chronicles, here’s one great reason to fall in love with Stephen Fry all over again. Adding to the debate around the future of books in their printed form, myFry is Stephen’s own gorgeous reading app Stephen’s own gorgeous reading app. At over £7, it’s seriously expensive in app land but believe you me, worth it. A chapter on Comedy here, a section on Celibacy there, it’s a brilliant and beautiful way to explore storytelling without the traditional constraints of linear narrative and restrictive form. And it sounds, as he might say, “marvellous”, scrolling around the graphical book spine that looks like a flower and goes tradadadadadadadada. Adding value not just by being a beautifully designed piece of mini technology, but by giving a genuinely innovative reading experience. He would, wouldn’t he, the clever cloggs.

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It’s great finding that perfect item in your favourite store, however most of us have been lured online by the supposed ‘convenience’ of online shopping. By ‘convenience’, all they mean is you can buy stuff while hung-over sitting in your underwear. The biggest problem with online clothes shopping is that you can never be certain how the purchase is going to look on. Online retailers are starting to adopt augmented reality to overcome this issue. One technology we came across has interestingly been developed by ad agency Zugara. It allows you to virtually try clothes on and share the image with friends on Facebook if you want a second opinion. Magazines are also using this technology to turn their fashion pages into virtual dressing-rooms, such as teen mag Seventeen. It’s good for advertisers and fun for readers alike. This use of augmented reality feels natural and of its time whilst genuinely improving the customer experience

You gotta love gaming for its regular technological dethronings. In the 80s SEGA ruled supreme, but they underestimated the power of PlayStation. Then Nintendo turned up and Wiied all over everyone. Who’s next? Sony look like they’ve lost it, poor bastards. The best they can muster is a me-too motion control system called ‘Move‘. Microsoft have levelled up and done away with controller’s altogether. Their ‘Kinect’ system launches shortly. The fanboy’s response? IMAGINE THE PORN. And Nintendo? Everyone’s going 3D, but they’re doing it without glasses! On a handheld! The Nintendo 3DS will be with us by Christmas. Have a look at these user responses at E3. And remember those are hardened gaming journos you’re watching. So, Nintendo for another term of office? We’ll see. Perhaps Apple can pull a fast one by shifting a load of iPads.

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Once, when someone died, we tended their memories tangibly – by laying flowers on a grave or visiting the site where ashes were scattered. For the “Facebook Generation”, the dead are not just remembered online, they’re silent partners in an ongoing, virtually uninterrupted dialogue. Friends and family are happy to tend to the social network pages of the dead, leaving messages and posting pictures. There is also a new breed of “online memorial” sites such as muchloved.com and gonetoosoon.com, where you can pay your respects for free – regardless of whether you knew the person – and areas where you can make donations and “light candles” or “plant flowers” to commemorate someone. It might seem peculiar, until we consider the real life alternative. Many people find funeral homes and graveyards grim and depressing. What’s more they are often in inaccessible parts of town, with inconvenient opening hours. At the very least, online memorials allow the bereaved to remember at a time of their choosing and pay tribute in a variety of media. Many are also religiously neutral.

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