(10) The Demographic Watershed: Growing Up Collaborating and the Internet, from Wikinomics (Who are the "authorities," anyway?)

Of course, by now, "everyone's read Wikinomics (!)" by Don Tapscott and Canadian Anthony D. Williams(http://www.wikinomics.com/book).

It's a great read.

This book might provide a partial explanation as to why people have lost interest and confidence in traditional "authorities", as laments Andrew Keen in his book, The Cult of the Amateur. (See my blog Post No. 4). When we're wondering just what's happening "out there," or why it seems people might be reading less (but I'm not convinced of that), it might be good to keep in mind the following:

"All generations in developed (and increasingly, developing) countries use the Web. Seniors, for example, have time to spend and new motives for going online --- communicating with their grandchildren may be the most important. However, a new generation of youngsters has grown up online, and they are bringing a new ethic of openness, participation, and interactivity to workplaces, communities, and markets. For this reason, they merit special investigation. They represent the new breed of workers, learners, consumers, and citizens. Think of them as the demographic engine of collaboration and the reason why the perfect storm is not a flash in the pan but a persistent tempest that will gather force as they mature.

Demographers call them the "baby-boom echo," but we prefer the Net Generation, as Don (Tapscott) dubbed them in his 1997 book Growing Up Digital. (...)

Born between 1977 and 1996 inclusive, this generation is bigger than the baby boom itself, and through sheer demographic muscle they will dominate the twenty-first century. While it is smaller in some countries (particularly those in Western Europe), internationally the Net Generation is huge, numbering over two billion people. This is the first generation to grow up in the digital age, and that makes them a force for collaboration. They are growing up bathed in bits. The vast majority of North American adolescents know how to use the Net. The same is true in a growing number of countires around the world. Indeed, there are more youngsters in this age group who use the Net in China than there are in the United States. This is the collaboration generation for one main reason: unlike their parents in the United States, who watched twenty-four hours of television per week, these youngsters are growing up interacting.

Rather than being passive recipients of mass consumer culture, the Net Gen spend time searching, reading, scrutinizing, authenticating, collaborating, and organizing (everything from their MP3 files to protest demonstrations). The Internet makes life an ongoing, massive collaboration, and this generation loves it. They typically can't imagine a life where citizens didn't have the tools to constantly think critically, exchange views, challenge, authenticate, verify, or debunk. While their parents were passive consumers of media, youth today are active creators of media content and hungry for interaction.

They are also a generatino of scrutinizers. They are more skeptical of authority as they sift through information at the speed of light by themselves or with their network of peers. Though they have greater self-confidence than previous generations, they are nevertheless worried about their futures. It's not their own abilities that they are insecure about --- it's the external adult world and how it may lack opportunity.

(...) Throughout adolescence and later in life, they tend to oppose censorship by governments and by parents. They also want to be treated fairly --- there is a strong ethos, for example, that I "should share in the wealth I create." They have a very strong sense of the common good and of collective social and civic responsibility.

Further, this is the first time in human history when our children are the authorities on something really important. An N-Gener's father may have been an authority on model trains. Today young people are authorities on the digital revolution that is changing every institution in society.

Wikinomics, by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams (Portfolio, 2007)