Generations in the Digital Age

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.

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Speakers

Ellen Helsper - Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. Her current research interests include new media audiences; digital inclusion; mediated interpersonal communication; and quantitative and qualitative methodological developments in media research.

Cliff Manning - Creative Director of Parent Zone - helping families flourish in a connected world. Associate for Carnegie UK Trust - exploring opportunities to improve digital inclusion for all young people.

Manolis Mavrikis - Reader in Learning Technologies at UCL Knowledge Lab, contributing research to understand and develop digital technologies to support and transform education.

Jack Andrews - UCL PhD student in Neuroscience and Mental Health. His research is focused on social brain development during adolescence and plans to explore questions relating to social cognition, social emotion and social group dynamics.

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Cognitive Sensations is a programme investigating the neurological effects of the digital age. Featuring talks, artworks and debates, the programme will uncover several concepts exploring the physiological and psychological changes occurring in humans, as a result of their engagement with digital technology.

Cognitive Sensations is taking place between November 2018 - May 2019, and is hosted by FACT in Liverpool and THECUBE in London, and curated by Gabriella Warren-Smith.