Tapscott’s NetGen
Although Tapscott’s use of Bob Dylan lyrics to try to explain to Baby Boomer’s that they don’t get the “Net Generation” was amusingly ironic, and despite the fact that his positive outlook was a far cry from the angsty “kids these days are so lazy and self centered” articles crop up in the NYTimes and other old-media standards from time to time, I found it very difficult to relate to an article that refers to me as “they.”
Perhaps my negative gut-reaction pegs me into the very stereotype I’m resisting (and yes, the TV is on mute, MP3s are blasting and I have 12 tabs and 10 programs open across four virtual desktops), but I’d like to think that any member of a specific demographic is inclined to be skeptical of the generalizations of an outsider. I appreciate that Tapscott is painting my generation in a better light to his peers than many others are inclined to see, but the article strikes me as inescapably ‘by Boomers for Boomers.’ As such he spends a lot of time explaining behaviors that I live daily, and his generalizations of ‘our’ motivations come across as incomplete.
For example, he writes that “a twentysomething in the workforce wants the new BlackBerry, Palm or iPhone not because the old one is no longer cool, but because the new one does so much more.” Well, yes and no; it’s more complicated than that. Because it “does so much more,” the new phone is inherently more desirable than the old one, and therefore the old one is ‘no longer (as) cool.’ Some people will want it for the features, some people will want it to brag to their friends. It wouldn’t surprise me if these motivational differences correlated more closely with socioeconomic demographics or even personality types than generations.
That said, I found his breakdown of generational age groups by geographic location to be quite interesting, particularly in the context of North America as the primary cultural exporter. It will be interesting to see if this shifts to more accurately represent global populations as the traditional mediums of cultural transfer continue to change.