This article highlights a real generational gap I never considered until earlier this year.
I started Googling when I was about nine years old, at the latest. My brother, who is five years old, has used Google since he was three or four.
My entire life, I have been able to investigate my interests and other bits of information, with individual independence. If a news story interests me, I have been wired, by habit and what-have-you, to seek out the info when and from whom I want it.
A local news program once teased a fluff piece about some record-breaking octopus. They were hoping it would entice viewers enough to sit through the commercials and watch it when the program returned. In the past, this would have been the case.
But instead, because that subject piqued my interest, I went ahead and looked it up very quickly online. Immediately, through Google News, I had access to dozens of articles to whet my appetite. I got the jist of the subject, and then I moved on. All of this before the commercials on TV were over.
When the program returned, they dedicated seconds to the subject, and moved on. There was a huge difference between what I knew about the subject from what I learned online, and the very little I would have known if I had only relied upon the TV news segment. Entire generations are wired to rely on the latter, the youngest ones are wired to Google.
My parents, who are still rather young--they are both 41--are more likely to just wait for the news program to return.
These cultural differences blow my mind. They remind me how dynamic culture is, and how much it has changed even throughout the course of my short life.
I told my five-year-old brother a couple weeks ago, that the internet is not very old, and there was a long time when people did not have it. It was hard for him to grasp a time when people did not have Google. I have to admit, I ask myself that very same question all of the time.
Exactly. I can foresee that soon television news programs will find it harder and harder to attract viewers as the newer generation with its use of the Internet for news turns away from the television networks.
It'll be interesting to see what they do to stay alive, and if they try to fight back against the internet like the movie industry is doing.
I started Googling when I was about nine years old, at the latest. My brother, who is five years old, has used Google since he was three or four.
My entire life, I have been able to investigate my interests and other bits of information, with individual independence. If a news story interests me, I have been wired, by habit and what-have-you, to seek out the info when and from whom I want it.
A local news program once teased a fluff piece about some record-breaking octopus. They were hoping it would entice viewers enough to sit through the commercials and watch it when the program returned. In the past, this would have been the case.
But instead, because that subject piqued my interest, I went ahead and looked it up very quickly online. Immediately, through Google News, I had access to dozens of articles to whet my appetite. I got the jist of the subject, and then I moved on. All of this before the commercials on TV were over.
When the program returned, they dedicated seconds to the subject, and moved on. There was a huge difference between what I knew about the subject from what I learned online, and the very little I would have known if I had only relied upon the TV news segment. Entire generations are wired to rely on the latter, the youngest ones are wired to Google.
My parents, who are still rather young--they are both 41--are more likely to just wait for the news program to return.
These cultural differences blow my mind. They remind me how dynamic culture is, and how much it has changed even throughout the course of my short life.
I told my five-year-old brother a couple weeks ago, that the internet is not very old, and there was a long time when people did not have it. It was hard for him to grasp a time when people did not have Google. I have to admit, I ask myself that very same question all of the time.
(Head Explodes)