Born To Be Wired
June 23, 2010
Technology, Communication, and the Millennial Generation
Mark Greenfield, University at Buffalo
Historical Context
Theories of the Networked World
- The Death of Distance 2.0: Distance will no longer decide the cost of communicating electronically.
- The World Is Flat: The world has been flattened creating a global, Web-enabled playing field that allows for multiple forms of collaboration.
The End of the Web As We Know It
- The mobile Web.
- Convergence.
- Read/write Web (blogs, wikis).
- End of the Web page paradigm.
- Users will aggregate their own content.
- Rich media.
- The World Network.
Millennial Generation
Who Are They?
- Born in 1980s and 90s.
- Also called: Generation Y, The Net Generation.
- Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation
- Special: Vital to the nation and their parents sense of purpose.
- Sheltered: Youth protection movement.
- Confident: Their generation will change the world.
- Team oriented: Tight peer bonds, shifted from I to we.
- Conventional: Social standards make life easier.
- Pressured: Trophy-kid pressure to excel.
- Achieving: Best educated generation; teens have 5-year plans.
Attributes
- Ethnically-diverse.
- Focused on grades and performance.
- Respectful of norms and institutions.
- Peer pressure toward positive behavior.
- “Hypertext minds” that prefer to leap around.
- Intuitive visual communicators.
- Sharp break from the attitudes and behaviors of Generation X
- Free agents > teamwork.
- Apathy > political action.
- Technology elevates the individual > technology elevates the community.
Millennials and Technology
- Technology is the very core of their existence.
- Carry an arsenal of devices.
- The Web is the hub for activities.
- Use the Web to create and share content.
- Staying is connected.
- Millennials are prolific communicators that reinforce social interaction
- IM, text messaging.
- Social networks (*facebook, friendster, orkut, meetup.com).
- Smart mobs: Virtual grouping to perform a collective action.
Information Age Mindset
From Jason Frand
- Computers aren’t technology.
- The Internet is better than TV.
- Reality is no longer real.
- Doing rather than knowing.
- Games (Nintendo) over logic, trial and error approach to learning.
- Multi-tasking is a way of life.
- Typing is preferred to handwriting.
- Staying connected is essential.
- There is zero tolerance for delays.
- Consumer and creator are blurring.
Parents of Millennials
- Helicopter parents: Always hovering, ultra-protective, unwilling to let go.
- Parents will meddle and fuss if they don’t feel their special child is getting the best of everything.
- The parent-child co-purchase the education.
- Implications for FERPA: Make sure parents and students understand privacy.
Implications for Student Services
- Students and parents are customers who actively compare programs and make choices.
- A 24×7 customer service culture — always on, always connected, anytime, anywhere.
- Cyber service and instant response.
- Millennials accept authority and respect institutions, along with “zero tolerance” for institutional failure.
Is E-mail Losing Its Effectiveness
- People are unwilling to share their e-mail address.
- Spam filters intercept legitimate e-mail.
- Millennials prefer IM.
- Growth of alternate communications channels (RSS, blogs, text messaging).
Looking Ahead
- Five-year-old daughter spends more time on the computer than television.
- Has been asking for a cell phone since she was three years old.
- Cell phones are being marketed for elementary school children, with buttons for mom, dad, and three others. Some have GPS.
Evaluating Communications Technology
- Synchronous versus asynchronous.
- Push versus pull.
- Audience (one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many).
- Social aspects (formal versus informal, anonymity, privacy, spontaneity).
- Cost.
- Single response or dialog.
- Searchability and archiving.
Instant Messaging
- Gartner predicts IM usage will pass e-mail for corporate communications.
- IM is more popular than e-mail for Millennials.
- Millennials often carry on several conversations at once, and have several screen names.
- System based on presence; people know when you’re on line.
- Synchronous communications.
RSS: Real Simple Syndication
- Engine driving the read/write Web.
- The power of syndication.
- User is in control.
- A new way to surf the Web and deal with information overload.
- Single feed versus multiple feeds: How detailed would the feeds be?
- Frequency of content updates: What is the threshold for deleting a feed, as they would delete an inactive bookmark?
Blogs
- Business Week: Blogs will change your business.
- Millennials prefer blogs over message boards.
- Persistence: You need frequent posts.
- Close the feedback loop: Activate comments, with approval stage.
- Become a blogger.
Blogs in Higher Education
- Student recruitment: Genuine, authentic look at the institution.
- Blogs in the classroom.
- Provide commentary and share expertise.
- Build community.
- Augment, replace listserv and electronic newsletters.
- UB is using WordPress.
What Makes Podcasting Special
- The power of RSS.
- TiVO.
- Proliferation of portable MP3 players.
- Coursecasting.
Wikis
- Operate on a principle of collaborative trust.
- Some estimate that wikis accelerate projects by 25 percent.
Looking Ahead
- Five-year-old daughter spends more time on the computer than television.
- Has been asking for a cell phone since she was three years old.
- Cell phones are being marketed for elementary school children, with buttons for mom, dad, and three others. Some have GPS.
Concluding Thoughts
- “Millennials Go to College:” Neil Howe and William Strauss.
- “The Cluetrain Manifesto.”
- “All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World.”
- “Naked Conversations.”