advances have brought humanity vast new freedoms along with the relative safety to enjoy them, these advantages have also pushed us further and further apart. The now typical household of one or two adults living alone or with children would not have survived during those times. And though today we are able to both enjoy more mobility and are less dependent on friends and family for our physical survival, it may well be that our social needs have been profoundly ignored. In this vein, we wonder if the time that many of us now spend on social media hanging out with like-minded people, sharing our current status and connecting online with old friends, distant family and loved ones serves as a good enough digital replacement for the centuries of communal living that in modern life has for the most part eradicated.
Yakkety Yak, Don’t Look Back
At the time of this writing, there are well over two billion Internet users worldwide. Asia leads the way with over one billion users and North America has more than 273 million—over three-quarters of our population. The least technologically developed continent, Africa, has just shy of 140 million users, which is only about 13 percent of that continent’s population, but the number of African users has increased nearly 3,000 percent in the first twelve years of the twenty-first century. Nearly one-third of the world’s population is online.7 And that number increases every single moment. To call the Internet a ubiquitous worldwide phenomenon would be a vast understatement. Essentially, we live in a new “golden age” of information and communication. We are interconnected in ways that were undreamed of a mere decade ago. In technologically advanced nations today virtually anyone, no matter where he or she is, can immediately connect with almost any other person.
Digital technology—primarily the Internet but also cell phones, cable TV, and other innovations—has, in less than a single generation, dramatically and permanently altered the ways in which humans connect and communicate on our little green and blue planet. Conversations and information transfers that once either weren’t possible or took days to complete now occur in an instant. Both the pace and breadth of human interactions have infinitely increased.
A Recap
Digital technology has also brought amazing advances into human interactivity and relationships. Today it is possible to be “virtually present” with someone on the other side of the planet, on an airplane, or even in outer space. We can “be together” with absolutely anyone, anywhere. Our actual location is rapidly becoming irrelevant. These technological advances are profoundly affecting humankind, forcing change on multiple levels. Throughout this book we will explore what these changes may or may not mean to humanity and our individual ability (and even our desire) to form and maintain meaningful interpersonal relationships both in the short- and long-term.
CHAPTER ONE
The New Generation Gap
Everything comes and goes
Marked by lovers and styles of clothes
Things that you held high
And told yourself were true
Lost or changing as the days come down to you
—Joni Mitchell, Down to You
Generally speaking, people born before 1980 are considered to be digital immigrants, and those born after 1980, digital natives.1 Digital natives are people who grew up actively using and engaging with computers and the Internet, while digital immigrants did not. While this arbitrary 1980 dividing line is not a hard-and-fast rule, typically, digital natives unquestioningly appreciate and value the role that digital technology plays in their lives, whereas digital immigrants hold mixed views about how modern communications technology has impacted their lives. To better understand this concept, consider the following two situations.
Situation one: A group of friends are at a busy restaurant. Everyone at the table is under age twenty-eight (digital natives). Several people are chatting with each other in conversation, while others appear to be fully engaged with their digital communication devices—texting, tweeting, and dropping in on Facebook. Everyone looks relaxed. There seems to be no hurry or worry about who is available to talk or what others are doing. The group appears as a whole to understand that being digitally preoccupied, while also at dinner with friends, is acceptable, typical, and routine. The devices and people at the table have near equal status.
Situation two: A more age-differentiated group of people are sitting at a table at that same restaurant. About half of the people are forty-five or older (digital immigrants), while the rest of the group are younger professionals in their late twenties (digital natives). Several people are chatting with each other in active conversation, while others appear to be fully engaged with their digital communication devices. Unlike situation one, there is tension at this table. Several of the older diners are clearly annoyed with the younger adults. They look over at them impatiently, lips pursed, feet tapping under the table. Eventually one of the digital immigrants turns to the woman next to her and says, “When did a phone become more important than a human being?” Her same-age friend clucks and nods.
If these scenarios sound familiar, then you are getting a sense of the electronic media-based generational divide that is a strong theme throughout the book.
This rapidly widening separation between digital natives and digital immigrants has created a new generation gap. This gap has introduced conflicting methodologies and ideologies that ultimately affect nearly every facet of modern life. There are differences in the ways digital natives and digital immigrants conduct business and gather news and information, as well as how they both earn and spend their paychecks. Digital natives and digital immigrants can also differ significantly in the ways they define personal privacy, how they experience entertainment (music, books, and movies), even the ways they socially engage—including flirting, romancing, and having sex.
Scaling back to view the big picture, it becomes increasingly clear that in nearly every arena outside of face-to-face interactions, our basic forms of interpersonal communication and social connection have been utterly reformatted in a mere two to three decades. In some ways this sounds much like every other generation gap in history. However, previous generation gaps have mostly centered on younger people hearing and seeing the older generation but ultimately rejecting and/or devaluing their ideas and beliefs. Today’s generation gap is more about the younger generation being literally and figuratively separated from the older generation in many, if not most, aspects of their lives. In other words, digital natives often neither see nor hear their elders because, from a communications standpoint, digital immigrants and digital natives are literally “not in the same room.”
Baby boomers will certainly remember the 1960s mantra “Don’t trust anyone over thirty,” first uttered by activist Jack Weinberg in relation to the Free Speech Movement. Today the mantra might be “Where are the people over thirty?” If you don’t text, email, spend time on Twitter or Facebook, or blog, then you’re not communicating or interacting with younger people. They simply don’t know you exist.
Talkin’ ’Bout My Generation ...
Beyond the obvious age differences, “generations” are typically defined by their use of slang; their choice of music and clothing; and their politics, social causes, and technological influences.
| The “Digital Immigrant” Generations, Born 1901–1982 | |
| Generation | Dates Born |
| Greatest Generation |
1901–1924
|
