Millennials not tech-savvy?

October 12th, 2005 Stewart Posted in Uncategorized |

Some of these results might be due to significant differences between US and England, including computer availability and curriculum management.

Also, reports like these use “tech-savvy” and “information-savvy” as if they were the same thing; they aren’t. Many Mils are in fact tech-savvy, with almost inate abilities to use cell phones, microwave ovens, and cable TV. They can also surf the web and multitask like crazy. What they don’t understand are computers, beyond operating system basics, anyways. They have no concept of how computers function, how networks are built, how databases are structured, or how the web actually works. “Instant on” technology for the average Mil means that when something doesn’t work for them, it must be an error or flaw with the device or the system, not with themselves. They have convinced themselves that they have information skills, but when asked specific questions, like “Have you built a web page” or “Do you know how to blog,” that tech superiority is shown to be pretty superficial on the whole.

In some recent classes of mine, I thought I would compare the scientific literature to blogging, just to give the students a point of reference. When I asked who was familiar with blogs, I’d usually get only five hands raised out of twenty. When I asked how many students had blogs, typically no more than one hand in twenty would go up. As a result, I’ve abandoned using that analogy in class. Mils still have a lot of catching up to do, on the whole.