There are some experiences our
kids may never have. Folding down the corner of a page in a book. Leafing
through the classifieds section of a newspaper. Renting a movie from the video
store … and taking it back again the next day. Rushing home to watch a TV show
at its allotted time.
But
let’s not get caught up in our nostalgia for these ghosts of media past. The
next generation will have a richer media experience than any other.
They’ll
have iPads in their earliest years, making touch
interaction with text and media the norm. They’ll have ebooks — millions of
them — available anywhere, anytime. They’ll live in a world of constant
connectivity where media consumption becomes a truly social experience — an act
of sharing and engaging. They’ll be their own publishers, editors and
distributors; their own DJs. Their media consumption will be personalized,
curated, customized to their specific tastes — and yet they’ll have access to a
diversity of opinion much broader than before.
They’ll
consume more media, from more sources, and in a greater range of formats than
we imagined — news websites, live-streaming video, on-demand TV, podcasts,
mobile apps, ebooks, news aggregators, video-sharing services, audiobooks,
movie-streaming services, blogs, social networks, music subscriptions and a
litany of formats yet to be invented.
Our
generation stands between the two eras: Dismantling the old and imagining the
new. What can we build together? How do we navigate this new media landscape?
This is a really exciting and interesting post to think about. I have been around computers ever since I can remember, but the first ones I remember using were those old Apple computers, and the idea of what the internet is today did not exist. Now Apple has made leaps and bounds to making iPads, and I have an all in one computer that has a touch screen and is much thinner then those old Macs. Thinking how far we have come from when I was born to what we have now technology and media-wise blows my mind. And to think of what the next generation will come up with after being exposed to more information then we have been exposed to (which is a lot) is hard to fathom, but I know it will be simply astounding, and I cannot wait to see it. Hopefully I won't have to video-call my kids every other day to ask how to use it.
ReplyDeleteYou better not dog-ear any of MY books!
ReplyDeleteBut I agree with the interesting points in this article. Every generation feels itself to be special, but as an 80's baby I feel particularly like I have straddled two epochs in my lifetime.
http://youtu.be/m9u0DkoBPlM
I tried to track down an old status update of a friends where he talk about some of the same things, how we grew up with cassettes and VHS and are witnessing the death of the analog. Very cool, thanks for posting.