"Read the whole thing?"

The panel put together to show folks how youth view online news was interesting. (Kids today, sheesh.) It was a graceful moderator and five articulatekids on the same stage they use for the Gridiron Club's annual roasting of the president, kids ranging in age from 12 to 21. All smart, all very digital in their media habits.
Do any of you read print? A pause, then, "Your hands get all black from the ink."
They weren't that into MySpace, one said it was just too creepy cuz not limited to kids, "anyone can go on there."
Common theme. "It seems so second nature to me just to open up a web page and get what I need." (they are digital natives rather than digital immigrants. Some folks call them the millennials, but that's too hard to spell and it sounds vaguely apocalyptic.
One young woman, about 17 or maybe 18, talked about how she had to help her mom open her email, that her doesn't know how do do anything digital. "I actually don't know how she gets by in her daily life without me."
The most techie of the bunch was a well-spoken high school boy who says he plays a game on his computer, one on his PS2 and simultarneously IMs his pals. He admits it was a bit too much, but later said "Unless it overloads your computer, it's never too much."
"Being connected all the time is like a visceral drive," one girl said.
She said she went camping and was horrified to find her Blackberry (!) was out of range. "I was hyperventilating. I had to borrow a cell phone to text my friend" to feel normal again
One of the boys echoed that, "When your computer goes out, your life sort of shuts down."
Some good news: They did show some loyalty to established news brands, all read the papers their parents did, but did so online. And, they said, "Blogs just aren't accurate, they're unreliable."
They thought ads are fine, as long as they're not too intrusive. Registration they do NOT like. One resented age limit registration particularly, saying he wouldn't go on it if it wasn't appropriate. Hmm mmm. And they won't give their real email address out to anyone, although they really think email is "formal," "for official stuff," not for chatting with friends. (That's why God made IM.)
Get this, will they pay for online content? "Certainly we're not going to pay for anything. If you pay for anything (information) online, you're a sucker."
And, what, the excellent moderator asked, would it take to get you to read a whole long article. The camper girl, quoted above, responded in astonishment, "Read the whole thing?" which made everyone laugh. But then she and the others went on to say they might if there is an explainer thingie telling them why they should care.