Old vs Young: The New Digital Divide
Darn you kids... get off my lawn!
Friday, December 8, 2006 by Zoomba | Discussion: WinCustomize News
For some here, technologies such as Instant Messaging are a relatively recent novelty, the latest addition to a string of new technologies that have been steadily marching across our desks for over 20 years. For others, the idea of a world without IM, without the World Wide Web, without cell phones is unimaginable. A major digital divide is forming between current teens and their parents, with current teenagers not knowing a world before the Internet, before word processing and instant global communication. Adults, for whom items like IM are a relatively new fad, often have trouble understanding teens dependence on technology, their surgical attachment to cell phones, and a compulsive need to check email every few minutes.
Someone who is 16 today was born in 1990, two years before the World Wide Web came about, but a full 6 years after the launch of the modern Personal Computer (the Apple Macintosh in 1984). So for all of their life as far back as they can remember they've had the Internet, it's just something that's always been there.
CNN talks about a recent poll conducted by the Associated Press regarding the difference in attitudes and Instant Messenger user between teens and adults. The results?
- Almost 3/4 of all adults who use IM still communicate via email more often.
- Almost 3/4 of all teens use IM more than email to communicate.
- Teens (30%) are almost twice as likely as adults (17%) to say they can't imagine life without IM
Of course, the story mentions that age doesn't mean you don't "get it" or aren't "hip to the things kids these days dig" and that many adults are embracing new technology and getting hooked.
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Reply #22 Tuesday, December 12, 2006 3:34 AM
| Bah! The first time I ever felt connected to the world was CompuServe, chatting and playing games with people across the country (until the bill came, at least) |
(Heh, took me a while to figure out how to quote part of a message: select and then click on "Quote.")
"My name is Nightbird and I am a dataholic." I have to confess that the CompuServe bills destroyed my credit rating.
Reply #23 Tuesday, December 12, 2006 4:05 AM
. Clearly I have a computer if I am posting here. I do not however have a cell phone, mp3 player, or the like. I still use the land line phone (mainly cause I don't have a cell, and my parents pay the land line bills 
) and I like it. I still use postal mail when I want to make something more personal for certain people.I use IM all the time, and I use email all the time also. Its a whole lot cheaper to talk to people in the UK (from Canada btw) than calling/postal.
I'm sure when 'my generation' reaches the age limits some of you are all at, technology will once again of changed. I remember being in school ('94 ish?) and having teachers/adults go on about how in the 2000's we'd have all this high tech crap like flying cars, jet packs, and lasers and stuff lol. Well... we don't (to the extent they went to
).I guess I'm just saying that technology progresses as the need (or desire actually) is required. Why pay phone bills when you can chat all around the world on skype or something for a hell of a lot less? Or send postal when you can email for near free? Why pay multiple bills for all these things when you can pay 1 bill for internet.
It just kinda makes sense to me... then again, I grew up with this stuff.
(And 12.95/h for Internet... omg. Thank god thats changed now
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Reply #21 Tuesday, December 12, 2006 12:56 AM
Truth be told, my cell phone is off about 23 hours per day.
Mine's still at the store....and it can stay there.....
And yes, they do bite....they bite yer in tha arse when the bill comes in...
That's why mine remains at the store and will continue to do so.
Me and a mate at the pub...his missus rings his mobile and he's in deep doo-doo for being there (background noise gave him away)...
My missus rings the pub cos I don't got no steenkin phobile mone....."Nope, he ain't here lady, shall I get him to call you IF he pops in?"