Tapscott, Part III

Upon completing this book, I admired how Tapscott countered every concern and negative opinion made toward my generation. He proves credible in his arguments and it honestly felt great to have someone outside of the Net Generation be supportive and actually defend our evolving lifestyle. After all, it's not like the Boomer generation was perfect considering my generation will be inheriting all of their problems and mistakes. If anything, our continuous intellectual growth from the web and constant interactivity will help us to fix a lot of these leftover issues.

Yet I can understand concerns regarding our lack of reading books. Personally, I only read books if they're assigned for class or if I'm at home visiting my parents and don't have anyone to hang out with. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy hanging out with my parents, not to mention the cats are good company as well, but every son or daughter needs his or her own personal "freedom" after a while... (Refer to previous blog for a more in depth explanation of this concept.) Honestly though, if I actually had the time to read a book for personal enjoyment, I would. It's a hobby I don't get enough of. But when I'm expected to amp up my productivity because technology has granted me access to email, clubs, group projects, sorority life, social media, texting, phone calls, interactive gaming, etc. I simply don't have the time. And when I do have the time, I'd rather be social or actually zone out watching TV.

I don't mean for my tangent of productivity and technology to sound like this lifestyle has become a burden, but I will admit to getting somewhat tired of everyone's demand for immediacy. Yet that's exactly what everyone wants. Heck, it's the reason why I get impatient waiting for my popcorn to get done in the microwave or why I become irritated with a slow internet connection. Once Web 2.0 caught on and rapidly integrated into our culture, there was no looking back. Days of writing letters and reading books are over, unless it's a special occasion (or I'm at my parent's house). And frankly, I'm okay with that. I'd prefer surfing the internet to find the information I need over reading a 300 page novel.

Perhaps this idea is why so many boomers freak out and think our world is doomed. My daily actions and beliefs contradict popular practice of traditional reading and writing dating back to its origin. However, because this lifestyle is different and unfamiliar doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Obviously integrating technology has been a good change for society and even for older generations, but fear of the unknown tends to blind reasoning and credible observation, a concept Tapscott recognizes throughout the book.

But overall, I'm not too worried about the older generation's "concerns." It's just like any other evolution, which forces them to participate and will eventually become transparent in their lives as well. Clearly their inexperience with immediacy will take them a while to get used to. Though what's ironic is it's the older generations that invented the beginnings of this lifestyle, so shaking a finger at a generation born into it is not a concept I would categorize as reasonable. Thank you Tapscott for making this clear and for giving the Net Generation some credit.