"Generation shifts" and technology

[Elena OMalley]

Steve's got a good point.

Generation shift may be just as much about expectations as specifics of 
actual knowledge. 

Some teenagers today may quickly click on a link that says "card
catalog" on a library website, thinking that it is where they will
look up books (or at least get directions to the physical location
of the card catalog). And some folks getting the senior citizen
discount will, upon entering a library, ask the librarian how to get 
into the online catalog and would be suprised to find a library without 
one. However, there's a significant mass of people for which the reverse 
is more likely to be true. 

Popular culture supports the idea of that significant mass, and people 
will often shape their assumptions, even about their own behavior and 
expected levels of knowledge, on what popular culture presents as the 
current state of affairs.
  
Elena O'Malley
__
Head of Library Computer and Internet Services
Emerson College Library, Boston, MA 02116


> ...
> Yes I cringe when people start throwing out statistics about 
> how wired the "younger generation" is and how many have instant 
> messenger accounts and compatible mobile phones, etc.  But I also 
> remember having a conversation with my grandfather about how things 
> like television (and even mundane things like ballpoint pens!) were 
> not around prior to the middle of the twentieth century.
>
> I don't believe that the issue (the shift, as it were) is about whether 
> young people adopt technology.  The shift is in their attitudes towards 
> and usage of it.
> ...
> Stephen Bollinger
> Internet Specialist
> CAPITAL AREA DISTRICT LIBRARY
> 401 South Capitol Avenue
> Lansing, MI  48901-7919
> http://www.cadl.org/