Editors' Rating
Published: 12 Jun 2009
'Email is for old people.'
We thought we were so clever and futuristic when we started using the internet. We're taking a green field, we thought, and inventing new social norms, reinventing politics and upending business.
The joke, as Don Tapscott began to say in Growing Up Digital and continues here in Grown Up Digital, is on us. The internet and its technologies look very different to Tapscott's first generation of 'digital natives' — people who are now aged between 12 and 30. These are folks who have never stood in line at a bank to cash a cheque, who spend upwards of two hours a day talking and texting on their mobile phones, and who've grown up thinking that World of Warcraft is better entertainment than anything on television. It's a Net Generation world, and if we invade their instant messaging and their Facebooks they'll just laugh at us while reinventing the world we think is ours.
Or so the story goes. Tapscott's basic thrust is that the Net generation isn't as stupid, passive, uneducated, apolitical, motionless or individualistic as people think. Instead, the people who most nearly match that description are probably the Baby Boomers who criticise them.
Baby Boomers grew up watching television; the Net Generation grew up interacting socially online and seeking out what they want. Baby Boomers have a thing for individualism; the Net Generation is collaborative, active and engaged. Baby Boomers wanted comfortable jobs for life in large, bureaucratic companies; the Net Generation see jobs as steps on a career path that they control. They want to be challenged and to be able to customise their jobs and innovate. Video games, far from turning them into violent bullies, are improving their visual perception and ability to spot detail. They may be called the 'dumbest generation' by some, but isn't that what adults always say about the young?
You may not, as we didn't, recognise these broad claims as being universally valid. Many of today's big successful technology companies were founded by risk-taking Baby Boomers seeking a challenge. Plenty of the Net Generation would be happy to believe they could settle into a job and not have to worry about where they're going to work later. But Tapscott's claims are based on the results of a $4 million study that surveyed (via an online questionnaire and in-depth follow-up studies) nearly 10,000 people in 12 countries, 7,685 of whom were Net Geners and the rest of whom were Gen Xers and Baby Boomers.
The point isn't to defend the Net Generation. Instead, Tapscott — who is a business strategist — is aiming to prepare businesses, educational institutions, parents and political leaders for the adaptation they're going to have to make. People who are used to collaborating using social media during their schooldays aren't going to tolerate having Facebook banned in their workplace any more than the last generation was willing to give up instant messaging or email. It's their world now, and if Baby Boomers are lagging behind the curve they're the ones who are going to have to change. Understanding what they're like is a place to start.
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