LIVING IN A DIGITAL WORLD

Quantities of superficial information bombard us 24/7. More than ever before, the Media comes to us. In fact, filtering out the quantity, and locating sufficient quality, to be well informed is probably more of a challenge than ever.

It therefore requires a degree of interest, combined with persistence and learning in order to make judgements about what aspect of a myriad of subjects it might actually be worthwhile to pay attention to and follow.

The greatest downside to the staggering amount of information so readily available, is filtering out the quantity, and actually locating relevant qualitative information.

The Generations before The Millennials (born 1982-2001) gradually accepted the need for technology but still watched television and the ‘mainstream media’ in real time; The Millennial group does not. Instead they grew up with these new sources of communication and technologies, and automatically incorporated them into their lives.

They are the first group which has ‘Grown Up Digital’ (in the words of Don Tapscott) and there is no way to consider them without their link to their technology. Quite simply technology has changed the way all of us receive information, as well as, poses implications for both the future and the world economy.

The Media today comes to us all wherever we are, but especially to those who know how to access it wherever they are and they use it at their convenience.

The Millennials, having grown up with each stage of the new technology incorporated and useful in their everyday lives use they familiarity with it to instantly tell everyone they know what they find important.

As a result the things that go ‘viral’ reach massive audiences in very short periods of time and virtually have a life of their own. However, just because it has gone ‘viral’ doesn’t mean it is relevant, important or true.

Today, it is more and more likely that it is only after the ‘news’ is everywhere that we can see that they/we should probably have waited until the whole story was out there before reacting.

I have recently written about how we now live in a world in which we can communicate with each other universally 24/7.

The upside of a 24/7 world, is an awareness that we are all together on one planet and are interrelated with each other in our responsibility to each other and the effects we can have on the future of our planet.

What I think is the downside of these new means of communication is our ability, and our propensity to react BEFORE, either our Brain is engaged or we have all of the facts. We are now able to send everyone we know our unfiltered and immediate reactions to whatever we see and hear.

I mused about the type of ‘Morning After’ a lot of people probably wake up to after texting everyone they know, often with Selfies and possibly even YouTube to witness the need they felt to tell everyone What They Really Thought about something in the middle of the night.

Under the surface however, you sense some personal detachment by The Millennials since their connections are actually not with everyone but mainly with their networks and friends. This stems from the fact that they seem almost umbilically attached, in a wireless way of course, to their devices. By devices I mean their technology: i.e. iPods or androids or iPhones or tablets etc.  

The rest of us often find that, although we may be standing in front of them, we usually sense and feel that something or someone else has their attention, not us. Most of us come to this conclusion because they spend a lot of time looking away from the live person in front of them and replying to whoever has just (and will continue to) send them text messages.

I sometimes wonder if this extends even to their own friends too. I say this because pictures abound of them in groups or even couples, both texting someone in their networks. It is possible, some of them might even be texting the person across from them. The photos seem to follow them everywhere; on dates, in theatres, on benches in an art gallery…almost anywhere, or in fact, everywhere.

Sometimes you just can’t help feeling they obviously find someone else on their devices more interesting than you. I personally suspect it is true, their attention is somewhere else. Most of us however have been forced to accept that this is what they do and how most of them are.

I don’t have much advice on what to do about this except to suggest we define no tech zones in the life you/we have with them. I suggest (tongue in cheek) you text them if you want something.

I also suggest that if it is a family gathering, send them all to another room. It will leave some space for others to sit, and also spare you from having to look at the back of a laptop or the top of their heads as they text someone else.

When dinner is ready give them a 5 minute warning, otherwise you might need to be prepared to wait a few extra minutes for them while they ‘tear’ themselves away from whatever they were doing.

They are the first group to come of age in the new Millennium and also the first group to have ‘Grown Up Digital’. They use the technology naturally and can access information easily (sometimes perhaps too superficially) but have made it an integral part of their lives.

There is something to be said about the amount of information that is available leading to learning something up to and beyond what you might ever have had access to before.

Meanwhile, being able to communicate with the world and to sense and feel and actually recognize that we are all united and cohabit on one planet, might enable us to recognize our responsibility to our planet, and each other, in ways we have not considered before.

The new technological universality is likely to require new thinking. It likely will lead to the development of new institutions and new ways of interacting with each other.

Perhaps the new language so many of us are learning to speak, will help us to discover new solutions to old problems and teach us something new about ourselves and the others with whom we share the planet.