[LINK] The iGeneration?

[David Boxall]

I should have known it was a mistake, buying a place without a habitable 
cave.

<http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-02-10-igeneration10_CV_N.htm>
By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY
Move over, Millennials. You're not the younger generation anymore.

For the past decade, you were the ones to watch. But now, as the eldest 
among you are fast approaching 30, there's a new group just begging for 
some attention. They're still kids, and although there's a lot the 
experts don't yet know about them, one thing they do agree on is that 
what kids use and expect from their world has changed rapidly.

And it's all because of technology.

"It's simply a part of their DNA," says Dave Verhaagen, a child and 
adolescent psychologist in Charlotte. "It shapes everything about them."

To the psychologists, sociologists, and generational and media experts 
who study them, their digital gear sets this new group (yet unnamed by 
any powers that be) apart, even from their tech-savvy Millennial elders. 
They want to be constantly connected and available in a way even their 
older siblings don't quite get. These differences may appear slight, but 
they signal an all-encompassing sensibility that some say marks the 
dawning of a new generation.

"The current generation seems to be moving well into adulthood, and 
there seems to be another generation setting itself up as a contrast to 
it," says Neil Howe, a historian and demographer who has co-written 
several books on the generations.

Kathryn Montgomery, a communication professor at American University 
<http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/American+University> in 
Washington, D.C., and author of the 2007 book /Generation Digital/, 
hears similar stories from her students. "They tell me their younger 
siblings have different relationships with these technologies," she says.

The difference is that these younger kids "don't remember a time without 
the constant connectivity to the world that these technologies bring," 
she says. "They're growing up with expectations of always being present 
in a social way — always being available to peers wherever you are."

The contrast between Millennials and this younger group was so evident 
to psychologist Larry Rosen 
<http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Larry+Rosen> of California 
State University-Dominguez Hills that he has declared the birth of a new 
generation in a new book, /Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and 
the Way They Learn/, out next month. Rosen says the tech-dominated life 
experience of those born since the early 1990s is so different from the 
Millennials he wrote about in his 2007 book, /Me, MySpace 
<http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Culture/Computers+and+Internet/MySpace> 
and I: Parenting the Net Generation/, that they warrant the distinction 
of a new generation, which he has dubbed the "iGeneration."

"The technology is the easiest way to see it, but it's also a mind-set, 
and the mind-set goes with the little 'i,' which I'm taking to stand for 
'individualized,' " Rosen says. "Everything is customized and 
individualized to 'me.' My music choices are customizable to 'me.' What 
I watch on TV any instant is customizable to 'me.' "

He says the iGeneration includes today's teens and middle-schoolers, but 
it's too soon to tell about elementary-school ages and younger.

Wendy Nokes, a seventh-grader in Winchester, Va., got a cellphone last 
year when she was 12 and is always in touch with friends. "I have it 
24/7," Wendy says. "Sometimes I have to be: 'I'm going to sleep now. 
Stop texting me.' "

Rosen identifies 13 distinct iGeneration traits, including:

•Early introduction to technology.

•Adeptness at multitasking.

•Desire for immediacy.

•Ability to use technology to create a vast array of "content."

That's no surprise to Kiley Krzyzek, 15, a high school sophomore in West 
Hartford, Conn. "A lot of my friends post videos on each other's 
Facebook 
<http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Culture/Computers+and+Internet/Facebook> 
walls" using webcams, she says.

*Starting young *

Rosen says the iGeneration believes anything is possible. "If they can 
think of it, somebody probably has or will invent it," he says. "They 
expect innovation."

They have high expectations that whatever they want or can use "will be 
able to be tailored to their own needs and wishes and desires, because 
everything is."

Rosen says portability is key. They are inseparable from their wireless 
devices, which allow them to text as well as talk, so they can be 
constantly connected — even in class, where cellphones are supposedly 
banned.

Verhaagen says this continual contact with peers isn't limited to teens, 
either.

"We're seeing children in third and fourth grade have the ability to get 
online and chat or have their own cellphone," he says. "Their 
relationships are taking a more adolescent tone."

Even preschoolers aren't immune. Although it's just pretend, Wendy 
Noke's sister Kaci, 3, has a collection of nine cellphones; four are the 
non-working cast-offs of family members, and the others are plastic, 
including Cinderella, Tinker Bell and Dora the Explorer 
<http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Dora+the+Explorer> varieties. 
She also has a plastic pink-and-purple Barbie laptop, which has its own 
mouse and programs that teach math, vowels and Spanish, as well as some 
computer games.

Kaci is pretty adept at the laptop, says her mother, Lisa Nokes, as are 
the preschoolers Nokes supervises as a day-care provider.

"It's mainly Disney.com," says Nokes, 38. "They have a lot of easy games 
that we do together."

Rosen's research found 35% of those ages 6 months to 3 years have a TV 
in their bedroom; 10% ages 4-8 have a computer in their bedroom; and 51% 
of those ages 9-12 have a cellphone.

"You have kids from 18 months old who have a mouse in their hands," 
Verhaagen says. "That's going to make a big difference in how their 
brains work."

Many researchers are trying to determine whether technology somehow 
causes the brains of young people to be wired differently. Based on some 
research related to multitasking, Rosen says, he's inclined to believe 
some "rewiring" is going on.

"They should be distracted and should perform more poorly than they do," 
he says. But findings show teens "survive distractions much better than 
we would predict by their age and their brain development."

Researchers also are studying how preschoolers and infants deal with 
media exposure, both made for them and the exposure they get when 
parents or siblings are in the same room, using video games, TV or other 
content.

Psychologist Sandra Calvert, director of the Children's Digital Media 
Center at Georgetown University 
<http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Organizations/Schools/Georgetown+University> 
in Washington, D.C., says many interactive computer games today are 
designed for ages 2 and under.

"It's a whole change in terms of how children are growing up," she says. 
"You used to start off with books, and now you start off with media from 
Day One. It's not that books have disappeared, but video is also pervasive."

*Shorter generations *

Whether middle- and high-schoolers are really a separate generation, as 
Rosen suggests, or "late-wave Millennials" isn't clear; Howe believes 
the latter.

"I think you're going to find a lot of disagreement about this," Rosen 
says. "I don't think you can define a generation when you're in the 
middle of it. The best you can do is try to characterize the 
similarities and differences and the overlap."

He suggests, however, that new generations arise based on their use of 
new technologies; he says identifiable new generational groups are 
emerging more frequently than in the past.

The Baby Boom generation, for example, most often thought of as those 
born from 1946 through 1964, lasted almost 20 years. But Generation X 
<http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Generation+X>, born from about 
1965 through 1980, was five years shorter. And the Millennials (also 
known as Gen Y) appear to be about 10 years, he suggests.

Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist with the Pew Internet & 
American Life Project, notes that "there is usually a subset of kids who 
don't really text-message and are not that into it. It's important to 
recognize there are variations."

*Info at fingertips *

Because these kids are more immersed and at younger ages, Rosen says, 
the educational system has to change significantly.

"The growth curve on the use of technology with children is exponential, 
and we run the risk of being out of step with this generation as far as 
how they learn and how they think," Rosen says. "We have to give them 
options because they want their world individualized."

Verhaagen agrees.

"They know almost every piece of information they want is at their 
disposal whenever they need it," Verhaagen says. "They're less 
interested in learning facts and learning data than in knowing how to 
gain access to it and synthesize it and integrate it into their life. 
We're talking about kids in elementary school and up and talking about 
much younger children who know how to get ahold of information. Their 
brains are developing in ways where they're taking in astronomical 
amounts of information, screening out unimportant details and focusing 
on the parts they need."

Even for kids like Kiley Krzyzek, who didn't know a world before the 
Internet, these rapid changes are striking. She got a cellphone when she 
was 12.

"Now kids are getting cellphones when they're, like, in fifth grade," 
she says. "Which I think is crazy."

-- 
David Boxall | Drink no longer water,
| but use a little wine
http://david.boxall.id.au | for thy stomach's sake ...
| King James Bible
| 1 Timothy 5:23