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Tech Tools Fostering "Mini Generation Gaps"
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times has an interesting report on the iGeneration, born in the '90s and this decade, comparing them to the Net Generation, born in the 1980s. The Net Generation spend two hours a day talking on the phone and still use e-mail frequently while the iGeneration — conceivably their younger siblings — spends considerably more time texting than talking on the phone, pays less attention to television than the older group, and tends to communicate more over instant-messenger networks. 'People two, three or four years apart are having completely different experiences with technology,' says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project. 'College students scratch their heads at what their high school siblings are doing, and they scratch their heads at their younger siblings. It has sped up generational differences.' Dr. Larry Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University, says that the iGeneration, unlike their older peers, expect an instant response from everyone they communicate with, and don't have the patience for anything less. 'They'll want their teachers and professors to respond to them immediately, and they will expect instantaneous access to everyone, because after all, that is the experience they have growing up,' says Rosen." Read below for another intra-generational wrinkle.
Another intra-generational gap is the iGeneration comfort in multi-tasking. Studies show that 16- to 18-year-olds perform seven tasks, on average, in their free time — like texting on the phone, sending instant messages, and checking Facebook while sitting in front of the television; while people in their early 20s can handle only six, and those in their 30s about five and a half. "That versatility is great when they're killing time, but will a younger generation be as focused at school and work as their forebears?" writes Brad Smith. "I worry that young people won't be able to summon the capacity to focus and concentrate when they need to," says Vicky Rideout, a vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Another intra-generational gap is the iGeneration comfort in multi-tasking. Studies show that 16- to 18-year-olds perform seven tasks, on average, in their free time — like texting on the phone, sending instant messages, and checking Facebook while sitting in front of the television; while people in their early 20s can handle only six, and those in their 30s about five and a half. "That versatility is great when they're killing time, but will a younger generation be as focused at school and work as their forebears?" writes Brad Smith. "I worry that young people won't be able to summon the capacity to focus and concentrate when they need to," says Vicky Rideout, a vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
I guess I'm Net generation. Except that doesn't sound right for anyone I know of my age group.
Furthermore, I've always adopted the best tools for the job, and ignored blatant fads such as twitter.
As for multi-tasking; Again, not a generation issue, as task switching just interrupts. Texting and facebook updating is a leisure activity, and doesn't mix with work at all.
They'll want their teachers and professors to respond to them immediately, and they will expect instantaneous access to everyone
And they're going to be quickly disappointed.
Rob
I'm from the beginning of the 80s...and not only that, I'm from a country that was under Soviet influence. Meaning "radio, telephone and TV" for a few decades; few generations knew nothing else. Till the first half of 90s I knew nothing else.
And yet, when reading TFS, I have a strong impression its description of people born in the 90s and 00s fits nicely to me. I guess in large part because I fully realize "our times were better" is only BS meant to make oneself feel better about youth that has passed or is passing away. And it causes harm by unreasonably valuing the past above present, which is almost universally better. You only have to embrace it (well, I do pick what I want; but the time of introduction doesn't play big role)
One that hath name thou can not otter
I thought that one of the benefits of texting was that you don't have to have a response immediately, or even read it immediately.
Which all sounds like a polite way of saying that kids these days have been spoiled. Instant gratification, be it through next-day felivery net-based purchases, simplistic video games or instantly downloaded media, means they have no patience.
Younger people scratch their heads in amazement at the things people of my generation and older have done that required supreme patience, whether learning a complex skill or finely crafting a model. This comes right on the heels of lacking discipline. If you can't see the value or take the time to perfect anything, how will you ever get good at anything except the trivial?
Oh, and get off my lawn.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
I worry that young people won't be able to summon the capacity to focus and concentrate when they need to
Doesn't -every- older generation say that? First it was that comic books were killing novels, next it was MTV killing attention spans, now it is multitasking.
The thing is, most young people have no real need to focus and concentrate. With the increased importance placed on education, both high schools and colleges are passing more students because you need a degree to be successful. Just think, a hundred years ago a high school education was all most people needed and people could still be successful without it. Today most people need at least some college or vocational training to do almost anything.
With jobs, it is collective blame, no one person takes the fall usually a small team will take it. There are few occasions where young people really need to focus.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I suspect their expectations will change once they start communicating about things that can't be answered with OMG LOL.
Regards,
Jason
When I was a child, there was no public Internet. In my late teens we had dial-up web sites that would pass messages back and forth with each other as far as a local call would go.
I don't miss those days - I think information should be available more or less instantly 24/7 if possible.
However, the current constant phone texting, Facebook, etc crap is just that, crap. It's electronic substitution for true socializing, and I can't help but feel that when a bunch of people stand around unable to interact with the people in their immediate vicinity because they're texting with someone who couldn't be bothered to actually show up... well, I think there's something wrong with that.
Sometimes the younger generations ARE wrong. I think the problem is these technologies are fad technologies and the people making them popular haven't outgrown them yet.
Call me if the text-aholics of today are still rabidly texting when they're 30.
I'm in my early thirties and I avoid multitasking like the plague. My younger colleagues and siblings seem to have no problems with doing several things at once - but the flip side is they end up doing many things twice simply because they sacrifice focus for versatility. They're so busy trying to do too many things at once that they rarely get anything done properly.
As for being always in contact, I couldn't care less. I'll usually answer as soon as possible, but I have no qualms when it comes to ignoring calls or messages if I'm busy with something, or simply don't feel like talking to someone. I don't expect people to be available on my schedule and see no reason why I am obligated to be always available when it suits them.
Seems to me there was a study recently that showed that people were pretty bad at multi-tasking, due to the time lost in context switching. This would seem to indicate that the "iGeneration" would, in general, be poorer workers than their older brethren. Or have the new kids gotten better at the context switching somehow? (Maybe added cores to their brains? :)
The instant-gratification bit in the article regarding messages is certainly true, but it goes much further than that. Many of these people born in the 1990s feel that the entire world should instantly respond to them and they get extremely impatient when it doesn't. They also tend to have the attention span of a gnat. I see a lot of people in this age range at work and I swear that most of them can't sit still for more than 30 seconds before the phone comes out and they're texting away. Some will even just start texting right in the middle of a conversation.
There are really two big problems with their behavior. One is that they are extremely impatient and rush through everything, acting like huge spoiled brats in the process ("what do you mean I have to wait two days for this package to get here! I want it nooooooooooowwwwwwwwww!!!!"). The second is that their tiny attention spans and easy distractability are recipes for disaster if they are ever in a potentially hazardous situation that requires their full attention, such as driving or operating equipment or machinery. I think that their parents had an "epic fail" in allowing them to grow up in this manner.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
Firstly, I think the designation of birth decades is completely bogus. Somebody who was born in 1980 is likely to have had a very different technology experience to someone born after 1985, but they are all lumped together. Someone born in 1980 would be 18 by the time the internet started to see mass adoption and computers started to become cheap, while someone born in 1985 would only be 13, and have their formative high-school years ahead of them.
And talking about the tech habits of people born in the 00s? They aren't old enough to have any entrenched tech habits yet! It will be the next decade that shapes them, not the past one.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Generations keep getting shorter and shorter somehow. This is because they're favoured by journalists who can't think of a better way to seem significant, so they have to keep finding more.
"iGeneration"? "Net Generation"? Come on, give some to...
- the Latte Generation
- the 9/11 Generation
- the Keyless Entry Generation
- the LOLcat Generation
- the "Juno" Generation
- the "Ima Let you Finish" Generation
They're still doing one thing concurrently with X others. Just because they all have iphones and can switch back and forth between facebook, texting, and music doesn't mean that they've magically gained the ability to do 3 things when we just used to "talk on the phone" with the radio on. They're still using the phone.
Maybe I'm wierd, but if I am talking to someone, it uses 100% of my wetware. I have to turn off the TV, ignore the computer, and stop having IM conversations. However, I can routinely have IRC open with a flowing conversation, several IM windows open, browse the net, read slashdot, and be watching discovery channel, as long as the vocalization center of my brain is not engaged. That may account for the rise in "multi-tasking" seen across generations as speaking is such an inefficient (in terms of resource usage per task) means of conveying information.
... would someone just FAX it to me and I'll read it while I'm on the toilet?
I would like to add this one:
As a member of the "Net Generation", I feel we have tuned ourselves to calling out Bullshit...
We have an ability to figure out that some stuff is the result of marketing vs. actual Buzz. That's why fake "viral videos" are so painful to watch.
Examples:
- Cyber Monday (We know this WAS fake, but stores use it to market now)
- MySpace Buzz (We knew this was dead years ago)
- CNN trying to be "hip" (We saw this from a mile away)
- The ACTUAL relevancy of Twitter vs. what is said on TV (Regis has a twitter account, it's officially uncool)
- 3DTV (A new one from this week due to CES. Seriously, I/We're not feeling it)
Now we can easily add the phrases "iGeneration" and "Net Generation"
We know these phrases are bullshit, but get ready to hear more about it.
iSwear, iF iHear another God-damn iPhrase iM going to kill everyone of those iFreaks. It's NOT a podcast, it's a SOUND CLIP you DOWNLOADED onto your MP3 PLAYER. People have jumped onto the iBandWagon the same way Businesses started calling all their services 'Solutions'... So yeah, definitely not a member of the iGeneration, oh how I hate that letter.
I'm 44. I can remember rotary phones, black and white televisions and when it was a big deal when televisions became solid state (with the exception of the CRT) in the mid 1970s, tube testers at grocery and drug stores and going to the library to do research using card catalogs and the Reader's Periodical Guide. Christ, I'm probably going to be processed into Soylent Green soon. Either that or the Sandmen are going to come and get me.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
'They'll want their teachers and professors to respond to them immediately, and they will expect instantaneous access to everyone, because after all, that is the experience they have growing up,' says Rosen.
Well, aren't we special!
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
For the last 1000 years old farts like myself have had there worries about the youngsters and new technology. Please stop the worries, there is no need to be worried about our fine young generation. Every generation will go one step further up the evolution ladder, and old farts like my self should stop the we-are-so-worried-because-they-do-things-differently crap and go back to our chess boards, old Spiderman magazines or Commodore 64 emulators and just STFU.
In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.
Gen X is in its peak earning years. 40 somethings are the people maintaining the infrastructure most of this runs on. Corralling the 20 and 30 something worker-bees. We're the ones that started working for the startups of the 80's after they became big and have the institutional knowledge to do things the correct way. Sure there are plenty of hot shot young-uns, but most of the economy is managed and maintained by people in 40's and 50's.
The article makes a couple of leaps and doesn't seem to understand tech.
First off, the number of tasks in front of the tv. Is this a generation difference OR an age difference? They seem to claim that young people do more tasks because they are exposed to more modern technology at a younger age. HOWEVER this would ONLY be valid if they KEEP doing this as they get older. Else the conclusion must be that as you get older, you do fewer things at the same time.
And then they claim that instant messaging results in an instant reply. But SMS is NOT instant, voice is. So, if they want an instant reply, why do they send an SMS?
I think the author of the article tries to hard to make connections.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Try, a wooden box on the wall with the speaker on a cord, the mouth piece on the box, and a crank handle to get the operators attention. That was one granny had that, I remember talking on it. My other granny had an icebox, and some dude would trot down the alley with a horse and ice wagon and come in and put a huge chunk of ice in it. We had a rotary at home though, think it was made out of cast iron.
We had the first TV in the 'hood, a 9" philco IIRC, and a buncha neighbors and relatives would come over and sit around and watch TV, not a whole lotta channels though and it all went off at night.
Lemme see...35 cent indoor movies, that was the only place with air conditioning, nickle cokes, nickle candy bars, and a real five and dime store that had tons of stuff for a nickle or a dime.
I don't remember all the prices on stuff, but a lot of it, like hamburger 5 lbs for a buck. Lot of cars still under a grand brand new. A portable radio was half a suitcase with heavy batteries in it.
Oh man, my fav, REAL army navy stores that had all the great stuff, just everything, you could go nuts in there poking through the junk, they had everything including surplus rifles. Dang giant rubber rafts hanging from the ceiling, old torpedoes, tons of neat stuff like that.
Bicycles were like harleys with no engines., about the same amount of steel.
Wimminks all still wore real stockings all the time...err..that was major cool.... ;)
Dang, ain't a year goes by I don't regret losing my baseball cards, comic books, all my early sci fiction paper backs, stuff like that.
A lot of tech and some aspects of society today are a lot better, a lot isn't though. Leaving keys in the car was common, never locking the door, etc. No school massacres, but we could carry our .22s to school to go shooting after school, etc. It was no big deal at all, stick 'em in your locker.
Back then, most everything was fixable, and did get fixed, now..not much, it works or it is junk.
Would I trade..uhh "timezones"? Nope, not a straight swap, but I would if I could pick and choose various things from then and now.
Interest isn't relevant.
Do they want to learn? (Hopefully) Do the professor have the knowledge? (Hopefully) Do the professor have time to have one-on-one discussions with every singel student? (Unlikely)
Maybe they will have to get used to not recieving instant gratification, or learn some things the hard way.
---
The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
Discovery is more about blowing stuff up than explaining science, the History channel seems to be nothing more than WWII and explosions.
Come on Discovery channel is way more than explosions. They got computer generated imagery of dinosaurs, shark bites, more dinosaurs, disgusting food from tribals, some more dinosaurs, disaster videos, and some dinosaurs, some more shark bites and did I mention dinosaurs?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I've got to say, this sort of behaviour just reinforces the common view of psychology as mostly worthless generalisations and unsupported theory.
WHERE ARE THE NUMBERS?
Let's see a proper study, using statistically valid numbers of subjects - taken from all races, creeds, famiily backgrounds and nationalities. Then there's be something worth discussing. Until then this is just a "aren't my children are wonderful" monolog. Boring.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
and don't forget:
D) on a 12 key pad the UI is so bad that it isn't worth the bother to try to send a SMS.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
I can see collaborative social media overtaking a lot of traditional education. But telling professors to "use Twitter" will *not* be any use for anyone.
Getting professors to blog, perhaps giving students a window onto the ongoing process of research (as opposed to the sanitized version they can read in journals) might be a step.
Did I say getting? Hmm, professors seem to professionally blog more any than anyone else already (except VCs, startup founders, and a few other niche professions).
'They'll want their teachers and professors to respond to them immediately, and they will expect instantaneous access to everyone, because after all, that is the experience they have growing up,' says Rosen."
Solution (and I am going to patent this as a business method) : the holding pattern interface
If an iGeneration member wants to communicate with an oldGeneration member ; they will receive an instant automated reply, followed by automated "i am working on it" reponses until the oldGeneration member finds time to get around to it.
"Hi [sibling] great to hear from you, busy doing a million things, will talk to you soon" ...
".. just let you know that I haven't forgotten about [thing] will talk to you later"
Customizable, 9000 canned responses (including "I am about to land in Hawaii.. waiting for signal") in 99 different languages.
Available sometime in the future at iHoldingPattern.com
Just like real life.
(Any parent knows that children want everything NOW, whereas us "grownups" try to juggle these demands in between the really important things. Like catching some TV)