Big business takes media lessons from schoolboy

A 15-year-old London schoolboy on work experience with Morgan Stanley has become an unlikely business oracle after writing a stark analysis of how his generation uses the media. In particular he has turned on its head the prevalent media view that Twitter is the next big thing.

Matthew Robson was asked by European media analysts at the famous bank to outline his friends' habits. So, pointing out that they couldn't afford to spend so much of their phone credit on telling people about the inanities of their daily lives, he reported that, "Teenagers do not use Twitter", as "they realise that no one is viewing their profile, so their tweets are pointless".

According to the Financial Times, Robson also said that he couldn't think of a single contemporary who regularly read a newspaper, as his generation "cannot be bothered to read pages and pages of text" and preferred summaries on the internet or TV news bulletins. Robson also said that his friends prefer to chat while linked up to video consoles, rather than talk by phone.

The teenager's insights were taken up by Edward Hill-Wood, one of his supervisors at Morgan Stanley, who said it was "one of the clearest and most thought-provoking insights we have seen. So we published it." Hill-Wood said the response had been unprecedented. "We've had dozens and dozens of fund managers, and several CEOs, e-mailing and calling."

Robson's revelations are timely. Just as he was rubbishing Twitter, the world's top media executives had assembled at the annual Allen & Co conference in Sun Valley, Idaho where many of them were enthusing about the micro-blogging site.

There was talk that both Rupert Murdoch and Google might be in the market to purchase Twitter. Google CEO Eric Schmidt admitted to Bloomberg that he was "looking for acquisitions" in Sun Valley and added: "We have talked a lot with Twitter."

Did he read Robson's report in time?