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The 'Net Generation' Isn't
Kanel introduces this lengthy review in Spiegel Online this way: "Kids that grew up with the Internet are not 'digital natives' as consultants have led us to believe. They're OK with the Net but they don't care much about Web 2.0 and find plenty of other things more important than the Internet. Consultants and authors, mostly old guys, have called for the education system to be reworked to suit this new generation, but they never conducted surveys to see if the members of 'generation @' were anything like what they had envisioned. Turns out, children who have known the Net their whole lives are not particularly skilled at it, nor do they live their lives online." "Young people have now reached this turning point. The Internet is no longer something they are willing to waste time thinking about. It seems that the excitement about cyberspace was a phenomenon peculiar to their predecessors, the technology-obsessed first generation of Web users. ...they certainly no longer understand it when older generations speak of 'going online.' ... Tom and his friends just describe themselves as being 'on' or 'off,' using the English terms. What they mean is: contactable or not."
There were no Techy generations. There were Techy people, be they blacksmiths or chip designers.
Techy people of different generations did their thing, but most people are spectators who don't WANT to know how things work.
They always will be, and for geeks, this is good.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
And not the whole world or America.
I'm a native of both and the article rings somewhat true of the people I know. But to be blunt about it, I think there is more to do in Germany, especially in this age range. More clubs, more affordable entertainment options, more and cheaper excercise options. More mass transit too, to get there.
I grew up as a latchkey kid in suburban borderline rural America and summered there. When I was 10-15, I was bored out of my mind most days and would have loved something like the internet. I was just too far from anything entertaining, including other kid's houses. It all comes down to having a car culture, imo.
One example, I find pools very expensive in America. Even my YMCA isn't cheap and is like 7 miles away. In Germany, a schwimmbad, hallenbad, etc are somewhat ubiquitous and cheap (5 euros entrance). The outdoor baths are particularly nice, having several pools, one usually Olympic size. None of this means anything if you can't get to it, but again, Germany has massive transit especially rail, and bus, and it doesn't take hours to get anywhere like the bus systems I know from Seattle or Philadelphia. Also, there are sidewalks and bikepaths everywhere, on the side of the road. Here, I had 3 friends that got hit over the years because it's mostly patchwork, if it exists at all.
There can be other factors and I'm sure urban kids have a different experience.
Today's kids have grown up with the net. It is so in-graved into today's society for most that most kids don't even think about it. The net is nothing special now like it was years ago. I remember years ago when the net first came around to everyone. It was something special and new then. I used to spend hours just looking around and finding new and different things. Now I mainly go to the few websites I like. It went from a new fascinating thing to simply a tool to get the job done. The magic is gone from the net now that it is everywhere and used by almost everyone. Just comes with the times.
I'm 19. I care about the 'net and social networking and the effect it has on the evolution of culture and social intelligence. I think what this study means to conclude is that the 'net has become integrated so much into our lives that it has lost that 'new car' feel. That doesn't make it any less important.
First adopters are always the biggest geeks. The internet, however, is less about its applications today than it is about content. When I started college, the World Wide Web was just emerging, and one had to have some technical aptitudes to know what to do with a PPP dialer, Eudora or, even more primitive, PINE mail, Gopher, Telnet, etc. The first major graphical browser, NCSA Mosaic, had just come out. But the net is so ubiquitous and content driven that users aren't talking about the net in terms of its technology... they're talking about it in terms of content: movies, music, images, news, friends, games, etc.
A technology becomes most useful is when the tech itself is at its most transparent, and the user is directly interfacing with their content with no tremendous awareness of the underlying layers (e.g. OSI model)... and that is precisely how it ought to be, be it for casual or business usage.
And what's your evidence? Of course, we can probably only offer up our own anecdotes, so I'll offer mine up too.
CBC Radio was talking about this earlier in the day. Young people seem to be viewing computers and the internet as tools they wield for doing whatever it is they want to do, be it contacting friends, maintaining social networks, communicating with other services, doing homework, etc. Many of them don't have the same curiousity or interest that many of us (the /. and other techy crowds) have towards these tools. A guest on the show lamented this, saying that we've lost the ability to "tinker" with our tools (*cough*), and that tinkering is an essential life skill.
I don't really agree with that guest. Many of us use tools to accomplish our goals without trying to tinker with them. I drive a car regularly and have no interest in knowing the ins and outs of its mechanics. Similarly with vacuum cleaners, washers and dryers, mechanical pencils, radios, and many other tools you may come across in your daily life. If it works, and helps me do what I want to do, that's all I care about. It's the same attitude that this younger generation (many of those in my university specifically) takes towards computers and the internet.
I think that is the real measure of how integrated something is in our lives. We don't really have to think twice about the tools we use in order to live our lives on a daily basis. They're just there, and we can use them when we need them, and we don't have to know everything about them.
But that doesn't mean that they're stupid. They know "the internet" is a sort of virtual space where services reside. Whatever hand-waving or magic or technological means are involved to deliver those services to them do not matter to them, so long as it works. And that's a perfectly fine attitude to take, imho. We all take that attitude to at least some degree towards at least some of the tools we use on a daily basis. This just boils down to people having different interests in different things. But to try to insinuate that young people are stupid (and unable to differentiate between the internet and Facebook, for example) just because they take that sort of attitude towards something that you or I are interested in is just bigotry. The inner workings of "the internet" are as foreign to them as the techniques and history of knife forging are to me. That's all there is to it.
They are users, nothing more
And they will be used.
~
Next you'll tell me that MTV generation didn't understand how a CRT worked and merely accepted the 60 hz spray of electrons into their eyeballs thoughtlessly.
Or that the telephone generation of the 50s didn't spend long hours thinking about the automation of connections.
Wow, I either have a distorted view of what "digital native" means or you do.
The US is full of car natives. When you wanna go to the mall to hang out with your friends you don't go saddle the horse.
This younger generation is full of Internet natives. When you wanna talk to your friends you don't reach for the telephone or pull out the quill and ink pot, you jump online.
FFS, what are you people talking about, you're on a god damn Internet forum.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Internet has disappeared into the walls like indoor plumbing and electricity. After much novelty, it becomes ubiquitous, for these kids it's just there and always has been.
The neophillia is experienced by the generation that bridge the period between when you had to walk to get water, and the period when you didn't, when you lit a candle and when you flicked a switch.
I understand the importance of a global digital network because I remember in my childhood there wasn't one, in my teenage years it was developing, and now I have a career in it. I've bridged the period of and no new generation will experience the same thing.
What changes will my children face.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Just because someone isn't interested in the same things that you are doesn't mean that they're not curious. Maybe they're interested in understanding people, maybe they're interested in how to run a business, maybe they just want to know everything about training dogs. Civilization takes all kinds of people, and fortunately different people seems to be attracted to different things.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
For years I watched younger family members grow up from wee lads and thought to myself, oh boy, next generation, they're going to make me look like a Luddite. Yet the outcome I had feared - finding myself suddenly behind the curve, no longer able to catch up with technology, maybe even "average"... deep down, I think would have preferred that. Having 20 year olds ask me for computer help makes me sad. It makes me want to say, you kids were supposed to charge ahead. But I don't see you charging anywhere. You don't even vote.
Ya, but WHAT? In the fine article the kid outlined said he was really into basketball, and that was it. whoopedy zing, that's it??? for real? So I repeat, what do they DO? Just entertainments, media consumption, play sports? Anything serious? Just saying that "they don't do what you like to do" isn't answering the question, it is just further dodging it.
And really, to repeat, I am not trying to "get off my lawn" dump on anyone or any generation, it is just fascinating in an odd way to me to think there are humans out there who have no interest at all in how things around them work, that using actual tools is just never even considered, that that is for someone else, this vague someone else to do.
I am *seriously* reminded of that somewhat famous heinlein quote about specialization and insects. And what makes it worse, is that even the specialization is apparently being ignored now, appears they want to "do" anything else but work/build/create/explore. Just some sort of existence with no real purpose, no drive or something, anyone but them needs to "do that" so they can...what?? Just live, contribute nothing back, expect to go their entire lives like that??
I don't know, that's why I am asking. And that is what I was wondering, I just can't believe it, so I want to know what really takes the place of being a tool using tinkering human today, especially in this demographic in the article.
``Hell, I've talked to professional computer people in their earlier 20s, say 20-22, who think that 'kermit' is just a Muppet. That's truly sad.''
I dunno. It seems to me that in the grand scheme of things Kermit the Frog is far more influential and important than the protocol which was named after him
I drive a Honda, but that might be besides the point.
You bring up a fantastic point. There are different features in different cars. Some of them have more or less horsepower, some of them have more or less torque at certain RPM bands, whatever. I don't know much about cars, like I said. But none of that really matters to me. What does matter to me is my experience with the car. When I drive my car, I have certain interactions with it that occur on a regular basis. Feeling the comfort of the seat, the feel and weight of the steering wheel, the sound of the engine, the appearance, etc. Then there are things that don't happen, like accelerator recalls, frequent breakdowns, etc. Those are the things that I'm interested in w.r.t. cars. As long as my car performs as intended and I have a good experience driving it, that's all that matters to me. All the numbers don't matter. I don't need to care whether or not it has more or less horsepower than another model, or whether it has a v4 or v6 engine, or whatever, as long as it performs as expected under the normal range of driving conditions.
This is exactly the same as how many people view computers. They don't need to know whether you have a Core i5 750 or a Phenom II x6 1055T. Those words and numbers mean nothing to them. As long as the computer performs as expected under normal conditions and they have a good experience with it, that's all that matters. This is why Apple computers sell. People don't care about the specs, they don't need to care about the specs. Sure, you pay a price premium for Apple. But what do you get in return? A really easy to use OS that requires little if any configuration. A good enough tech support that will help you fix your problem (with whatever voodoo magic, for all they care) and that is easily reachable and has a human face. You or I may debate the merits of getting a Phenom II x6 or a Core i5, or whether to stick with an AM2+ motherboard or upgrade to AM3, depending on whatever purposes we have. But most people just want a machine for general use purposes, and none of those specs make a huge difference. As long as you're buying current gen hardware (or even hardware from one or two gens previous), it's good enough for most people.
The take-home is that for many of our tools, it doesn't matter how exactly it works, as long as it works and we have a good experience using those tools. You might be interested in those tools, and others might not be.
As for the crappy drivers, I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to get at. There's almost no expectation that you need to know how a car works in order to get a driver's license in most places that I know of. You need to have basic knowledge of how to drive a car, basic driving techniques, the rules of the road, etc. If you think that the problem lies in people not knowing how cars work, then you might want to take that up with your local politicians. It seems to me, however, that crappy drivers are crappy drivers not because they don't know the mechanics of their car, but because they don't give a shit about the rules of the road and have no common courtesy.
Exactly, we have a bias for our times. How many teen girls knew how to fix a TV in the 50s? But they all used it.
Seriously, you are 26 and already being crotchety? I'm 30 and I think you are exhibiting "Cranky old person syndrome" in a bad way.
You are bitching because people don't know about some old, somewhat obscure, modem protocol? What the fuck? Why would they? Hell even many people who used modems didn't know about it because they didn't use it with the systems they were on (XMODEM and ZMODEM were way more popular in my experience).
As a counterpoint, do you know all about the telegraph, how it came to be, the development, the refinements, the way it changed the world? Can you tell me about the different kinds of keys and what they are good at? What can you tell me about the life of the man who invented it? Can you even tell me his name (without looking it up)?
There are actually questions I CAN answer... Because I did extensive academic research on Morse. It is an extremely important part of our communications history and shaped many other developments (for example it was the very start of the move to electronic funds, with the ability to 'wire' money). However I do not expect random people to know about it. There is no reason to. It is now a historical relic, Morse Code practiced by very few people any more and no longer required even for amateur radio licenses. It is an important part of our history, but not something I expect everyone to learn about.
That is just one example, I could pick many more. Don't get grumpy because the things that were new to you are old to others. That's called progress and it is a wonderful thing.
Now get off my lawn. :D
Repeat after me: Email is NOT a file transfer protocol.