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The kids they are a-changin | July 9, 2002
By Mara Gulens
The first time my eldest daughter tried out a digital camera, she shot 100 images in 20 minutes. “Time to stop,” I said, thinking about the cost of photos, and that, well, when I was fourand-a-half years old I sure didn’t get to shoot pictures at random.
“Why?” she asked, already scanning the room for more.
Good question, considering taking a digital photo doesn’t actually cost anything—the picture is just space in the camera’s on-board memory.
Observing kids interact with technology is nothing short of amazing. The kids themselves take it all in stride, helping world-weary grandfathers surf the ’net, holding five conversations—online and off—simultaneously and taking to new devices as if they’d been using them forever.
“Kids are fearless technology users,” said Darryl Reiter,president of the Children’s Technology Workshop, a technology learning centre for children in Toronto.
“There’s no question they’re taking hold of technology and really enjoying it.”
When Toronto-based business and technology writer Don Tapscott penned Growing Up Digital back in the mid-1990s, his ideas about the Internet generation were considered radical. “Today’s kids are so bathed in bits that they think it’s all part of the natural landscape.
To them, the digital technology is no more intimidating than a VCR or a toaster,” he wrote.
What he observed then in small groups is now a widespread and growing phenomenon. A study from U.S.-based Knowledge Networks/Statistical Research found one-third of kids aged eight to 17 choose the Internet as their preferred medium, surpassing TV for the first time.
Let’s get digital
What Tapscott termed the ’net generation, or N-Gen, is youth between four and 24. The youngest of these kids has no memory of life before the Internet, cellphones and other trappings of 21st century digital life. As the Markle Foundation points out in Children and Interactive Media, “they are the first generation that is truly growing up digital.”
Unlike generations that went before them, kids today don’t have to accommodate new technologies, they just absorb them. “Technology is like the air,” Tapscott said. “They don’t have to change anything, they just assimilate this whole experience.”
So what are the ramifications of this phenomenon?
As Tapscott points out, parents of today’s kids grew up as viewers in a oneway broadcast analogue world. Kids today, on the other hand, live in a digital, interactive world, where they’re users and initiators.
When kids are online they’re communicating, composing thoughts, searching, authenticating and telling stories. “It’s all a very active kind of engagement, compared to being an active recipient and watching the Mickey Mouse Club or Ed Sullivan,” Tapscott said.
Indeed, consultant Kate Baggott said the argument that today’s kids are less social or less likely to build relationships hasn’t proved true. “Kids spend their time together pursuing their interest in video games or the Internet,” she said.
“Teens and cellphones are a perfect example of the constant communication and socialization they’re involved in.”
The switch in focus from books and television to interactive media has brought about fundamental changes in the way kids communicate and process information. Indeed, the whole experience of youth has changed, with families and schools being the first to feel it.
In many families, the 11-year-old is now an expert in technology. “Kids are the systems administrators in houses across the nation,” Tapscott said. This reality is reflected in various television commercials where parents seek out their kids for computer help. Kids are also driving the use of technology. A recent Statistics Canada survey reported that 55 per cent of parents with home computers bought
them specifically for their children.
Technical authority at schools has also changed—kids know more about computers, the biggest innovation in learning—than their teachers. In turn, technology has changed education models by allowing teachers to structure highly customized learning experiences rather than lecturing to transmit data.
Instead of sitting in class listening passively, kids are involved in more interaction, discussion and customized learning,Tapscott said.
Furthering the change
As the four- to 24-year-olds of today—a group of about eight million—move on to the workforce and marketplace and become completely empowered consumers, they’ll have an impact on these areas as well.
“They will change the marketplace, the corporation, and I think they’re going to have a big impact on government,” Tapscott said.
Young people have already changed many ideas about work and management.
The corporate view of the boss as an authority on everything isn’t always acceptable to a 24-year-old who has already been an authority on new technology.
This shift will lead to more networked models of work, more powerful work-learning environments— in essence then a more collaborative
environment.
Government will have to become more participative and interactive. The “new democracy” will have to include concepts such as digital brainstorming, deliberative polling, citizen juries, online discussion groups and other models that allow people to be engaged citizens
rather than passive recipients.
As people become less enamoured with new technologies they’ll also start thinking more about implications.
“Increasingly these young people, as they become young adults and have families, are going to have to [consciously] design their families,” Tapscott said.
Instead of relying on values handed down from the past, families of the future will have to decide which technologically influenced values to adopt. These will increasingly include issues of content-blocking software, authority, the blurring of work and leisure and the use of personal devices in public places.
Which means to say that, a generation down the road, my daughter will grapple with technology issues much like I do. But her ponderings
will be based on a lifetime of digital experience.
The first time my eldest daughter tried out a digital camera, she shot 100 images in 20 minutes. “Time to stop,” I said, thinking about the cost of photos, and that, well, when I was fourand-a-half years old I sure didn’t get to shoot pictures at random.
“Why?” she asked, already scanning the room for more.
Good question, considering taking a digital photo doesn’t actually cost anything—the picture is just space in the camera’s on-board memory.
Observing kids interact with technology is nothing short of amazing. The kids themselves take it all in stride, helping world-weary grandfathers surf the ’net, holding five conversations—online and off—simultaneously and taking to new devices as if they’d been using them forever.
“Kids are fearless technology users,” said Darryl Reiter,president of the Children’s Technology Workshop, a technology learning centre for children in Toronto.
“There’s no question they’re taking hold of technology and really enjoying it.”
When Toronto-based business and technology writer Don Tapscott penned Growing Up Digital back in the mid-1990s, his ideas about the Internet generation were considered radical. “Today’s kids are so bathed in bits that they think it’s all part of the natural landscape.
To them, the digital technology is no more intimidating than a VCR or a toaster,” he wrote.
What he observed then in small groups is now a widespread and growing phenomenon. A study from U.S.-based Knowledge Networks/Statistical Research found one-third of kids aged eight to 17 choose the Internet as their preferred medium, surpassing TV for the first time.
Let’s get digital
What Tapscott termed the ’net generation, or N-Gen, is youth between four and 24. The youngest of these kids has no memory of life before the Internet, cellphones and other trappings of 21st century digital life. As the Markle Foundation points out in Children and Interactive Media, “they are the first generation that is truly growing up digital.”
Unlike generations that went before them, kids today don’t have to accommodate new technologies, they just absorb them. “Technology is like the air,” Tapscott said. “They don’t have to change anything, they just assimilate this whole experience.”
So what are the ramifications of this phenomenon?
As Tapscott points out, parents of today’s kids grew up as viewers in a oneway broadcast analogue world. Kids today, on the other hand, live in a digital, interactive world, where they’re users and initiators.
When kids are online they’re communicating, composing thoughts, searching, authenticating and telling stories. “It’s all a very active kind of engagement, compared to being an active recipient and watching the Mickey Mouse Club or Ed Sullivan,” Tapscott said.
Indeed, consultant Kate Baggott said the argument that today’s kids are less social or less likely to build relationships hasn’t proved true. “Kids spend their time together pursuing their interest in video games or the Internet,” she said.
“Teens and cellphones are a perfect example of the constant communication and socialization they’re involved in.”
The switch in focus from books and television to interactive media has brought about fundamental changes in the way kids communicate and process information. Indeed, the whole experience of youth has changed, with families and schools being the first to feel it.
In many families, the 11-year-old is now an expert in technology. “Kids are the systems administrators in houses across the nation,” Tapscott said. This reality is reflected in various television commercials where parents seek out their kids for computer help. Kids are also driving the use of technology. A recent Statistics Canada survey reported that 55 per cent of parents with home computers bought
them specifically for their children.
Technical authority at schools has also changed—kids know more about computers, the biggest innovation in learning—than their teachers. In turn, technology has changed education models by allowing teachers to structure highly customized learning experiences rather than lecturing to transmit data.
Instead of sitting in class listening passively, kids are involved in more interaction, discussion and customized learning,Tapscott said.
Furthering the change
As the four- to 24-year-olds of today—a group of about eight million—move on to the workforce and marketplace and become completely empowered consumers, they’ll have an impact on these areas as well.
“They will change the marketplace, the corporation, and I think they’re going to have a big impact on government,” Tapscott said.
Young people have already changed many ideas about work and management.
The corporate view of the boss as an authority on everything isn’t always acceptable to a 24-year-old who has already been an authority on new technology.
This shift will lead to more networked models of work, more powerful work-learning environments— in essence then a more collaborative
environment.
Government will have to become more participative and interactive. The “new democracy” will have to include concepts such as digital brainstorming, deliberative polling, citizen juries, online discussion groups and other models that allow people to be engaged citizens
rather than passive recipients.
As people become less enamoured with new technologies they’ll also start thinking more about implications.
“Increasingly these young people, as they become young adults and have families, are going to have to [consciously] design their families,” Tapscott said.
Instead of relying on values handed down from the past, families of the future will have to decide which technologically influenced values to adopt. These will increasingly include issues of content-blocking software, authority, the blurring of work and leisure and the use of personal devices in public places.
Which means to say that, a generation down the road, my daughter will grapple with technology issues much like I do. But her ponderings
will be based on a lifetime of digital experience.
