Ubiquitously Connected and Pervasively Proximate - UCaPP - era
Wow what a title right? Seriously I did not come up with that on my own. Matter of fact I will give you some background information on who did give me that catchy tongue twisting title. His name is Mark Federman, was Chief Strategist at the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto, and continues his private consulting practice and he has written a book. I had a chance to hear Mark speak at the National Extension Technology Conference this past April.
Mark's work focuses in on Ubiquitously Connected and Pervasively Proximate - UCaPP - era, which means everything is always connected and just a click away. He stated in his talk (which you can hear on his blog) that we are facing a technology gap never seen in our time since 1844 with the invention of the telegraph; he stated that the technology transitions take about 300 years to complete. In 1995 the dot com bubble was signified by the Netscape IPO (Initial Public Offering) - now everyone notices the Internet - its all over the place. Now we have a really interesting situation were we have a break boundary that hasn't happened since the 1850s...right now we have a generation alive that was educated and socialized in the industrial and mechanical world. We also have a generation alive that was socialized beginning in the year 1995 that are now around 22 or younger who were socialized in a world in which they note they've never NOT known the internet. So we're at a point where we have two generations alive - one prior to the Internet and one has never known life without the Internet.
The younger generation lives in a world in which Google has not ever existed. They live in a world in which everyone that ever has mattered lives is a text message away, click away, or a posting on a social network away. All of which are all connection devices. Unlike the other generation who was socialized in an industrial era today's youth and tomorrow's adults live in a Ubiquitously Connected and Pervasive Proximity everyone is and soon will be connected to everyone else and all available information through simultaneous information.
Mark later goes into saying that the older generation has go connect and get on the bandwagon and told the group how to bridge the generation gap between the two. I thought it was one of the best speeches I've heard in a long time and I think he hits the nail on the head with why we're even taking a class on 21st Century Technology because lets face it - everything is only a click away!
Mark's work focuses in on Ubiquitously Connected and Pervasively Proximate - UCaPP - era, which means everything is always connected and just a click away. He stated in his talk (which you can hear on his blog) that we are facing a technology gap never seen in our time since 1844 with the invention of the telegraph; he stated that the technology transitions take about 300 years to complete. In 1995 the dot com bubble was signified by the Netscape IPO (Initial Public Offering) - now everyone notices the Internet - its all over the place. Now we have a really interesting situation were we have a break boundary that hasn't happened since the 1850s...right now we have a generation alive that was educated and socialized in the industrial and mechanical world. We also have a generation alive that was socialized beginning in the year 1995 that are now around 22 or younger who were socialized in a world in which they note they've never NOT known the internet. So we're at a point where we have two generations alive - one prior to the Internet and one has never known life without the Internet.
The younger generation lives in a world in which Google has not ever existed. They live in a world in which everyone that ever has mattered lives is a text message away, click away, or a posting on a social network away. All of which are all connection devices. Unlike the other generation who was socialized in an industrial era today's youth and tomorrow's adults live in a Ubiquitously Connected and Pervasive Proximity everyone is and soon will be connected to everyone else and all available information through simultaneous information.
Mark later goes into saying that the older generation has go connect and get on the bandwagon and told the group how to bridge the generation gap between the two. I thought it was one of the best speeches I've heard in a long time and I think he hits the nail on the head with why we're even taking a class on 21st Century Technology because lets face it - everything is only a click away!
I wonder if the younger generation may be so electronically connected that they don't have any personal contact. As I walk across NCSU's campus, I notice everyone I meet is chatting on the phone. When I was an undergraduate, we used to chat with the person who was walking beside us.
No question about which of the two generations I belong to, huh?
Posted by Rhonda on September 17, 2008 at 11:41 PM EDT #