Generations in the Digital Age will seek to identify the differences in the degree to which technology is central to everyday life across different age groups. In our current landscape, most babies are born into an environment rich with digital technology, and will learn how to swipe their fingers on a phone before saying their first word. This baby belongs to a breed commonly known as the Digital Natives.
In neuroscience, we know that the brain’s period of development between birth and early childhood is crucial to its functional and structural organisation. Elements such as the environment, sensory stimulation and cultural influences play a huge part in this critical process of shaping the brain.
Years later these Digital Natives become teenagers, with behaviours and habits born through the relationships with their phones. Psychologist Jean M. Twenge argues these teens are physically safer than previous generations, but more psychologically vulnerable. Independence is lagging with a decrease in dating, teen employment and driving licence obtainment, reflecting the tendency for teens to stay at home, keeping tabs on their social life on screens.
Collectively in the digital age, a large proportion of our personal information is available to others online. John Palfrey and Urs Gasser argue that the Digital Natives will pay the highest price in their decreased ability to control identity as others perceive it. Their relaxed attitude to sharing information with online communities may later affect their control over how they are represented online. What do we trade for the convenience of search engines and online profiles, and who maintains control of this information?
As societal processes are increasingly embedded through online practices, Digital Natives are able to navigate through daily life with ease. The elderly generation however are faced with issues in adaptation, having not been shaped through these practices from birth or gained a lifetime of digital literacy. However, when this age group were given the opportunity to improve their digital skills, technology had an incredibly transformative and positive affect on their wellbeing, decreasing factors such as depression and loneliness.
Under the spotlight of this discussion, we will examine the current difficulties of the generational digital divide, the perceived challenges that we will be face in the future years to come, and how our behaviours and practices could be altered to avoid the issues we are developing.
