Activity 3- Generational Myth

Nimrit Sohal
Composition 106
Activity 3
October 7, 2008

Generational Myth

Although it may seem that all adolescents are extremely well adapted to today's generation of technology, this may not be the case for all of them. The writer of, Generational Myth, Siva Vaidhyanathan, argues that many researchers believe that all young people are now tech-savvy and uninterested in traditional ways of learning. Therefore, these young people are forced to adapt to new types of technology when in reality, not all of them are as interested in these technologies as assumed. For instance, young students seem to be forced to use technologies that are mostly all education is technology-driven.
The assertion in question two describes how young people are pushed to adapt to the new systems and devices, while in actuality, they may not necessarily want to use them. Many presume that all young people love the same certain forms of interaction, and hate the same ones. This misleading idea causes people to create marketing clichés and force the youth to conform to specific forms of interaction. Vaidhyanathan describes in his article that “there is no such thing as a digital generation” (Generational Myth, pg. 1, Siva Vaidhyanathan). He is asserting that today’s generation is not as “digital” as many people automatically assume. Also, he references Leslie Johnston’s blog post where she claims that she has worked with students at three different universities who do not care about being up to date with technology and digital. The generalization of this “digital generation” is just that, an unfairly imposed generalization.
Technology used for educational purposes is becoming more and more one-size-fits-all. However, there are numerous students who defy the assumption that doing school assignments on digital devices is always more enjoyable. Unfortunately, they are forced to utilize technology for virtually all of their educational endeavors. It can be argued that if a student needed to write a research paper, the computer and internet readily provides more or less all the resources needed to complete the assignment. If this is compared to a student who is writing a research paper using only the library and an assortment of books and encyclopedias, it is assumed that the tech-savvy student has the advantage. In the article, Vaidhyanathan uses Hargittai, a sociologist and associate professor of communications studies at Northwestern University who is studying and writing about the effects of the digital era on the adolescents, as a reference as well. Hargittai explained why people tend to overestimate the digital skills of young people. He believes that people from the younger generation can use technology better because they have been exposed to it since a young age. Contrary to popular belief, this does not mean that they understand these new developments better than any other person. Also, Hargittai gives the example that if you were to ask an average eighteen year old teenager if they know what RSS (Rich Site Summary) is, they would most likely reveal ignorance.
It is important to be exposed to both digital and traditional types of education rather than one over the other. This is because they both teach different types of learning skills in their own respect. Traditional ways of education can be straight forward and provide students with more detailed information about certain topics, and also be easier and less time consuming to find information. People assume that using technology is an easier way to conduct research because it is time efficient, but it is important to note that using the internet to do research may not always be 100% reliable. One has to be extremely careful when collecting information from the internet because of the many complexities of citing and information ownership.
The unfair generalization of the new generation to be adapted to new digital ways of life is not necessarily true for everyone. Adolescents have been introduced to technology since they were young, this does not mean they enjoy it. Students should be aware of traditional learning as well as digital learning. This generalization has caused students to be forced to use technology for all sorts of activities.