BlackBerry Middle School Popularity

So, my fiance is babysitting for a family with 3 children, a sophomore in high school boy, an 8th grade girl, and a 5th grade girl . She is doing a week long house sitting/babysitting job. I know the 8th grade girl and her friends very well because I was their basketball coach this year. Anyways, I went their to cook them all dinner tonight and the 8th grade girl had 3 friends over. The thing I noticed is that all 4 of the 8th graders had BlackBerrys (2 9650s and 2 9700s).

I was talking to one of the friends about her BlackBerry and BBM. She's a pretty social girl so I asked her how many contacts she had in her BBM and to my astonishment, she had over 360 contacts and over 60 active conversations. I told her that I refuse to put random people in my BBM contacts and she told me that at least 300 of those contacts were kids from her school or the highschool in town.

Anyways, the point of this story is that BlackBerrys are obviously VERY popular amongst 13-15 year olds. Granted I live in a the richest town near NYC, so many kids in the area have smartphones. We went on to talk about Android and the iPhone and she said she didn't know anyone with an Android phone (literally NO ONE) and only a few kids with iPhones (most have iPod Touches instead).


*One thing to note is that all 4 of the girls still have 5.0 running on their devices, but 2 of them knew about BB6 while the other 2 had no idea.

9650...
8th... Graders..?

$200 phones?!
For 8th graders?!


WOW. I'm jealous.

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Yeah, like I said, very rich area. The house we were in was worth at least $3 million.

As a senior high student, I completely understand where the OP is coming from. I'd say at least 50% of our student population uses Blackberrys. I'd say theres probably 20% iPhones, 20% android and 10% "feature phones". Then again, my predictions could be completely off

this is not NEWS to me, since i know first hand 4 young family members with a BB, from a Curve 3G to a Bold 9780.
part of it is the BOGO ( buy one get one ) deals that the parents are getting for their kids.
and if you noticed the new BB ad of BBM Flirt, this is the market group that they're trying to corner.
i hope the other OLDER ( not necessarily wiser) members of the forum read this thread and realize that although they're losing their BBM contacts by the numbers..it's not a reflection of the BBM popularity at ALL.
Yes, SMS and MMS are an alternative, but the BBM have features of notifying you whether your message has been delivered or read by the other party.
Another advantage that i see with the BBM is the "overseas" capability.
Whenever i get deployed overseas, i use BBM to communicate with Family.

My nephew is in the 7th grade and wants a BlackBerry of his own. My mum has my own tour but, does not use it to its full potential (she only makes calls, no bbm, texts, email, or internet). I am the only one in the family with a BlackBerry and I think the main reason he wants one is because I have one (I am his favorite person). Still I think middle school is a little young for a BlackBerry, high-school is more age appropriate in my opinion.

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rich parents don't have time to deal with their kids, but they sure have money to do it.

This is a huge problem for Blackberry. This is where RIM is targeting their efforts. Instead of competing with Apple and Android, they are targeting teens and tweens. RIM wants this segment of the population to keep buying their product. I see more under 20-somethings using BBM than adults. Why do kids stick with Blackberry? They can hide what they are doing from their parents.

This is pretty surprising to me since I had known middle and high school kids were addicted to texting, but I had no idea that BlackBerry's and BBM were so huge with that group. Maybe it's a regional thing, since the younger kids I see around my area definitely have cell phones but it seems that not that many are carrying BBs. Even so, 360+ BBM contacts is unreal. Wow.

I've been noticing this for quite a while. My son is 15 and he has a BB. Quite a few of his friends have one as well. Kids treat them much more socially than we do, using BBM status updates like Twitter or FB. They also add people they don't know to their contact list. Adults treat their PINs as sacred, kids share them on Twitter. Do a quick Twitter search for the word PIN and you will sh!t a brick!

RIM knows this is a VERY big target market for them...hence the BBM/Barcode ads and Youtube videos...What they lose in older folks moving to Android/iOS they gain in young adults wanting BBM.

This has nothing to do with wealth of the parents. Most kids already HAVE a phone. A student plan for BB might be $10-15 more per month MAX.

When I was a senior in highschool I was the ONLY one with a Blackberry. It was a 8320, and everyone thought I was weird for having this phone.

Now I'm in my second year of college, and I see a lot of kids with a Blackberry. And I mean A LOT. They had iPhones before, but everyone's moving to Blackberry.
But students form my school are really wealthy kids, so I don't think money is a problem for them.

And when I'm riding the subway I see a lot (and again, A LOT) of business people with Blackberrys, it's crazy.

My little sister who's a junior in Highscool (my old highschool) told me a lot of kids had Blackberrys now.

I guess they're just really becoming popular.

Originally Posted by mark_rivers19

this is not NEWS to me, since i know first hand 4 young family members with a BB, from a Curve 3G to a Bold 9780.
part of it is the BOGO ( buy one get one ) deals that the parents are getting for their kids.
and if you noticed the new BB ad of BBM Flirt, this is the market group that they're trying to corner.
i hope the other OLDER ( not necessarily wiser) members of the forum read this thread and realize that although they're losing their BBM contacts by the numbers..it's not a reflection of the BBM popularity at ALL.
Yes, SMS and MMS are an alternative, but the BBM have features of notifying you whether your message has been delivered or read by the other party.
Another advantage that i see with the BBM is the "overseas" capability.
Whenever i get deployed overseas, i use BBM to communicate with Family.

There are other chat programs that offer the d/r functionality though, and if you have the data connectivity to use BBM, you have the connectivity to use the others too.

I'm just frankly amazed at the thought of middle school kids having BB devices or phones in general. No wonder the education system is failing, kids had a hard enough time concentrating in class without this too.

Originally Posted by Mark PPG

I've been noticing this for quite a while. My son is 15 and he has a BB. Quite a few of his friends have one as well. Kids treat them much more socially than we do, using BBM status updates like Twitter or FB. They also add people they don't know to their contact list. Adults treat their PINs as sacred, kids share them on Twitter. Do a quick Twitter search for the word PIN and you will sh!t a brick!

Um. Dude, seriously? Have you looked in the social section of this forum? There are thousands of adults sharing PINs with people they don't know. Seriously, go look. And there are websites dedicated to the same.

RIM knows this is a VERY big target market for them...hence the BBM/Barcode ads and Youtube videos...What they lose in older folks moving to Android/iOS they gain in young adults wanting BBM.

This has nothing to do with wealth of the parents. Most kids already HAVE a phone. A student plan for BB might be $10-15 more per month MAX.

I still can't wrap my mind around kids having a cell phone much less a smartphone. That's just crazy.

As others have said, those new RIM BBM ads must be working for showing folks the social potential of BBM. Will be interesting to see what happens if RIM allows other platforms to use BBM.

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Wow. If my parents had a babysitter for me when I was a Sophomore I'd be pretty pissed off LOL.

Originally Posted by avt123

Wow. If my parents had a babysitter for me when I was a Sophomore I'd be pretty pissed off LOL.

Heck, I started taking care of myself from age 10 on. No babysitter for me, but, then again I grew up in small town USA.

Originally Posted by avt123

Wow. If my parents had a babysitter for me when I was a Sophomore I'd be pretty pissed off LOL.

Hilarious observation. That gave me a great laugh. :D

Originally Posted by anastasiophan

Yeah, like I said, very rich area. The house we were in was worth at least $3 million.

My husband and I are stationed in a very poor military town and I'm shocked at how many of my clients own a BlackBerry. These are people who are living paycheck to paycheck, barely paying their light bill every month yet they are sitting in my office with a $200 phone. It's not just the rich, the poor find ways to get their techy stuff too.

I also see a lot of Android phones and iPhones for the younger crowd.

Originally Posted by K Bear

Heck, I started taking care of myself from age 10 on. No babysitter for me, but, then again I grew up in small town USA.

Same here. Basically once 5th grade came around I was allowed to stay home by myself. I also wasn't an ***** though and enjoyed my privilege. I did have people over though.

Originally Posted by avt123

Wow. If my parents had a babysitter for me when I was a Sophomore I'd be pretty pissed off LOL.

There are 3 kids and the parentsa are away for 10 days. Rthe youngest kid is in 5th grade. It makes sense.

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Yeh, I figured it probably was best in reality since there were 3 kids to watch and Sophomores often aren't old enough to drive, but I still thought it was a pretty funny comment.

I'm wondering if this is going to change soon? With the Android surpassing the bb as the number one smartphone (sad face) - there are so many messaging services that they can place on it.

But, I'm in astonishment that given how fast some kids run through phones (or anything for that matter) that parents would shell out 200+ for their child in middle school.

Originally Posted by anastasiophan

Anyways, the point of this story is that BlackBerrys are obviously VERY popular amongst 13-15 year olds. the other 2 had no idea.

odd I thought youbguys said that was ylthe iPhone and Android age bracket

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