A recent Reuters survey finds that most young people don’t really consider the role of technology in their lives, and that, according to them, they “don’t like it”.
This may seem strange considering the ubiquity of mobile phone and internet usage, but the point is that kids see the specific aspects of technology rather than the macro “concept” of it; they may talk about “downloading” or “burning”, “consoles” or “myspace”, but rarely does technology as a whole appear as a specified interest or concern.
The statistics, however, vary considerably. Far more youths from countries like Brazil, India and China tend to admit liking technology, while Europeans and Americans tend to view it more “organically”. As Andrew Davidson, vice president of MTC networks says of the latter group:
Talking to them about the role of technology in their lifestyle would be like talking to kids in the 1980s about the role the park swing or the telephone played in their social lives–it’s invisible.
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Absolutely agree with this problem. I gave a short seminar to a group of inner city school teachers on “Evolving Students from Media Users to Media Thinkers” while I was attending NYU. All these kids use the media tools, but no idea how they work. One teacher did an experiment where he simply removed the iexplorer shortcut from desktop of the computers in the comp lab and all the kids asked, “Where did the internet go?”. This is a serious issue and more light needs to be shed on it. Early adopters were NEVER really kids, but 25-35 year olds that work in affected industries. How many teenagers jumped on the Twitter bandwagon? It comes down to an education issue in my opinion. Thoughts?
July 25th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
I think it’s invisible to them because it’s already part of them at the point they don’t even notice it. They metabolize techno realted items immediately while mature users need time to get used. Isn’t it fantastic? Regarding the fact they don’t know how media tools work, the majority of people don’t know how phones, tv etc work. We are surrounded by things we don’t how they work.
July 26th, 2007 at 3:48 am
Agree with Margherita. These attitudes reflect the broad penetration of tech into everyday life and its use by everyday people.
The parallel here is cars. A generation or two ago, many adults were “car people”–they knew models, specs, how they worked, how to service them, etc.
Now, cars are so reliable that most people buy them just like they buy toasters: purely on the functionality. They don’t care how they work, what’s under the hood–they just want them to work.
Same principle.
July 26th, 2007 at 5:24 am
Don’t you think you will have a generation that is blind? I agree with your ideas in principal, but much more needs to be done to educate kids on the technology. We learn how combustion engines work and terminal velocity, etc, etc. Learning about technology is equally if not more important. One CANNOT innovate unless you understand the foundation. In addition, we need to inspire the youth. It’s great that they use the internet, but Myspace and AIM are such superficial uses. As graduates in the sciences and engineering continue to decline something needs to ignite the spark that inspires further pursuit in this field.
July 26th, 2007 at 9:39 am